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How to Improve Reading Comprehension: 8 Expert Tips

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Reading is a skill many people take for granted, but the act of reading and properly comprehending a text is a complex and interactive process. It requires several different brain functions to work together and most often requires one to puzzle through multiple layers of context and meaning.

Because reading comprehension is so complicated, we can often find ourselves understanding the most basic interpretation of a text, but missing the emotional core or the "big picture." Or we might just find our brains spinning with no clue at all as to what a text is attempting to convey.

But luckily for everyone who struggles in English classes, on standardized tests, or in daily life, reading comprehension can be improved upon (and it's never too late to start!). In this guide, I explain step-by-step how to improve reading comprehension over time and offer tips for boosting your understanding as you read.

What Is Reading Comprehension?

Reading comprehension is the understanding of what a particular text means and the ideas the author is attempting to convey, both textual and subtextual. In order to read any text, your brain must process not only the literal words of the piece, but also their relationship with one another, the context behind the words, how subtle language and vocabulary usage can impact emotion and meaning behind the text, and how the text comes together as a larger, coherent whole.

For instance, let's look at the first line from Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice :

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

Now, a completely literal interpretation of the text, just based on word-meaning, would have us believe that 'all rich men want wives.' But the context, word choice, and phrasing of the text actually belie that interpretation. By using the phrases "universally acknowledged" and " must be in want of" (emphasis ours), the text is conveying a subtle sarcasm to the words. Instead of it being an actual truth that 'rich men want wives,' this one sentence instantly tells us that we're reading about a society preoccupied with marriage, while also implying that the opening statement is something people in that society may believe, but that isn't necessarily true.

In just a few short words, Austen conveys several ideas to the reader about one of the main themes of the story, the setting, and what the culture and people are like. And she does so all the while seeming to contradict the literal words of the piece.

Without practice in reading comprehension, nuances like these can become lost. And so it can happen that someone may find themselves reading, but not truly comprehending the full meaning of a text.

As you can see, reading comprehension involves many processes happening in your brain at once, and thus it can be easy for some aspects of a text to get lost in the muddle. But the good news for anyone who struggles is that reading comprehension is a skill just like any other. It must be learned through practice, focus, and diligence, but it absolutely CAN be learned.

Why Reading Comprehension Is Important

Proper reading comprehension can be difficult, so why bother? Even though learning how to properly read and comprehend texts is a complicated process, it is a necessary skill to master, both for work and for pleasure.

You will need to know how to read and interpret all kinds of different texts—both on the basic, literal level and on a more in-depth level—throughout your schooling, in college, and in the working world (as well as in your recreation time!). If we think about "reading" just as a literal or surface understanding of a piece and "reading comprehension" as the complete understanding, a person can only get by in the world on pure "reading" for so long.

Reading comprehension is essential for many significant aspects of daily life, such as:

Reading, understanding, and analyzing literature in your English classes
Reading and understanding texts from your other class subjects, such as history, math, or science
Doing well on both the written and math sections of the SAT (or all five sections of the ACT)
Understanding and engaging with current events presented in written form, such as news reports
Properly understanding and responding to any and all other workplace correspondence, such as essays, reports, memos, and analyses
Simply taking pleasure in written work on your own leisure time

Just like with any goal or skill, we can master reading comprehension one step at a time.

How to Improve Reading Comprehension: 3 Steps

Because reading comprehension is a skill that improves like any other, you can improve your understanding with practice and a game plan.

Dedicate yourself to engaging in a combination of both "guided" and "relaxed" reading practice for at least two to three hours a week. Guided practice will involve structure and focused attention, like learning new vocabulary words and testing yourself on them, while relaxed practice will involve merely letting yourself read and enjoy reading without pressure for at least one to two hours a week. (Note: if you already read for pleasure, add at least one more hour of pleasure-reading per week.)

By combining reading-for-studying and reading-for-pleasure, you'll be able to improve your reading skill without relegating reading time to the realm of "work" alone. Reading is a huge part of our daily lives, and improving your comprehension should never come at the cost of depriving yourself of the pleasure of the activity.

So what are some of the first steps for improving your reading comprehension level?

Step 1: Understand and Reevaluate How You're Currently Reading

Before you can improve your reading comprehension, you must first understand how you're currently reading and what your limitations are.

Start by selecting excerpts from different texts with which you are unfamiliar—text books, essays, novels, news reports, or any kind of text you feel you particularly struggle to understand—and read them as you would normally. As you read, see if you can notice when your attention, energy, or comprehension of the material begins to flag.

If your comprehension or concentration tends to lag after a period of time, start to slowly build up your stamina. For instance, if you continually lose focus at the 20 minute mark every time you read, acknowledge this and push yourself to slowly increase that time, rather than trying to sit and concentrate on reading for an hour or two at a stretch. Begin by reading for your maximum amount of focused time (in this case, twenty minutes), then give yourself a break. Next time, try for 22 minutes. Once you've mastered that, try for 25 and see if you can still maintain focus. If you can, then try for thirty.

If you find that your concentration or comprehension starts to lag again , take a step back on your timing before pushing yourself for more. Improvement comes with time, and it'll only cause frustration if you try to rush it all at once.

Alternatively, you may find that your issues with reading comprehension have less to do with the time spent reading than with the source material itself. Perhaps you struggle to comprehend the essential elements of a text, the context of a piece, character arcs or motivation, books or textbooks with densely packed information, or material that is heavily symbolic. If this is the case, then be sure to follow the tips below to improve these areas of reading comprehension weakness.

Improving your reading comprehension level takes time and practice, but understanding where your strengths and weaknesses stand now is the first step towards progress.

Step 2: Improve Your Vocabulary

Reading and comprehension rely on a combination of vocabulary, context, and the interaction of words. So you must be able to understand each moving piece before you can understand the text as a whole.

If you struggle to understand specific vocabulary, it's sometimes possible to pick up meaning through context clues (how the words are used in the sentence or in the passage), but it's always a good idea to look up the definitions of words with which you aren't familiar. As you read, make sure to keep a running list of words you don't readily recognize and make yourself a set of flashcards with the words and their definitions. Dedicate fifteen minutes two or three times a week to and quizzing yourself on your vocab flashcards.

To get started, you'll need some blank index cards and a system to keep them organized. These basic cards are an affordable option that are also available in fun colors . You can keep them organized with plastic baggies or rubber bands, or you can get an organizer .

Alternatively, try these easy-flip flashcards that include binder clips. Though we strongly recommend making your own flashcards, you can also buy pre-made ones —the best option is Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know , a series of exercises to master key words and idioms.

In order to retain your vocabulary knowledge, you must employ a combination of practiced memorization (like studying your flashcards) and make a point of using these new words in your verbal and written communication. Guided vocabulary practice like this will give you access to new words and their meanings as well as allow you to properly retain them.

Step 3: Read for Pleasure

The best way to improve your reading comprehension level is through practice. And the best way to practice is to have fun with it!

Make reading a fun activity, at least on occasion, rather than a constant chore. This will motivate you to engage with the text and embrace the activity as part of your daily life (rather than just your study/work life). As you practice and truly engage with your reading material, improvement will come naturally.

Begin by reading texts that are slightly below your age and grade level (especially if reading is frustrating or difficult for you). This will take pressure off of you and allow you to relax and enjoy the story. Here are some fun, easy reads that we recommend to get you started:

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roksani Chokshi
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Ghost by Jason Reynolds
The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K .Rowling

Once you feel more comfortable reading and practicing your comprehension strategies (tips in the next section), go ahead and allow yourself to read at whatever reading or age level you feel like. Even if you feel that you don't understand some of the text right now—or even a large portion of it!—if you enjoy yourself and give it your best shot, you'll find that your reading comprehension levels will improve over time.

Reading these problematic passages aloud can often help circumvent that block and help you to form a visual of what the text is trying to convey.

Tip 3: Re-read (or Skim) Previous Sections of the Text

For the most part, reading is a personal activity that happens entirely in your head. So don't feel you have to read just like anyone else if "typical" methods don't work for you. Sometimes it can make the most sense to read (or re-read) a text out of order.

It is often helpful to glance backwards through a piece of text (or even re-read large sections) to remind yourself of any information you need and have forgotten—what happened previously, what a particular word means, who a person was...the list is endless.

Previous sentences, sections, or even whole chapters can provide helpful context clues. Re-reading these passages will help to refresh your memory so that you can better understand and interpret later sections of the text.

Tip 4: Skim or Read Upcoming Sections of the Text

Just like with the previous step, don't feel that the only way to read and understand a text is to work through it completely linearly. Allow yourself the freedom to take apart the text and put it back together again in whichever way makes the most sense to you.

Sometimes a current confusion in a work will be explained later on in the text, and it can help you to know that explanations are upcoming or even just to read them ahead of time.

So skip forward or backwards, re-read or read ahead as you need to, take the piece in whatever order you need to in order to make sense of the text. Not everyone thinks linearly, and not everyone best understands texts linearly either.

Tip 5: Discuss the Text With a Friend (Even an Imaginary Friend)

Sometimes discussing what you know so far about a text can help clear up any confusion. If you have a friend who hasn't read the text in question, then explain it to them in your own words, and discuss where you feel your comprehension is lacking. You'll find that you've probably understood more than you think once you've been forced to explain it to someone who's completely unfamiliar with the piece.

Even if no one else is in the room, trying to teach or discuss what a passage says or means with "someone else" can be extremely beneficial. In fact, software engineers call this technique "rubber duck debugging," wherein they explain a coding problem to a rubber duck. This forces them to work through a problem aloud, which has proven time and time again to help people solve problems. So if a piece of text has your head spinning from trying to work through it by yourself, start chatting with your nearest friend/pet/rubber duck. You'll be surprised with how much easier it is to understand a text once you've talked it through with someone.

Even if that someone is a duck.

The Take-Aways

Improving reading comprehension takes time and effort, but it can be done. Be patient with yourself, work through your reading comprehension steps, and try not to get frustrated with yourself if you feel your progress is slow or if you feel you're "falling behind." You will utilize your reading skills throughout your life, so go at a pace that works for you, and take care to maintain that balance between reading for pure pleasure and reading for dedicated improvement.

As you begin to incorporate more and more reading into your daily life, you'll find that comprehension will become easier, and reading will become more fun. In every piece of text, there are worlds of meaning to explore, and learning how to uncover them can be the ultimate rewarding journey.

What's Next?

Can't get enough reading? Whether as part of your reading practice or just for fun, check out our picks for the 31 best books to read in high school.

Problems with procrastination? Whether you're studying for the SAT's or studying your reading comprehension vocabulary check out how to beat procrastination and get your studies back on track.

Want to earn better grades? Our guide will help you get that 4.0 you're striving for .

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download them for free now:

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links PrepScholar may receive a commission.

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Courtney scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT in high school and went on to graduate from Stanford University with a degree in Cultural and Social Anthropology. She is passionate about bringing education and the tools to succeed to students from all backgrounds and walks of life, as she believes open education is one of the great societal equalizers. She has years of tutoring experience and writes creative works in her free time.

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Get an insight into the minds of our academics and team of educational creatives here at Oxbridge Essays. From expert guidance and practical advice on essay and dissertation writing, to commentary on current academic affairs, our blog covers all things student-related, with the goal of helping you do better during your time at university.

Essay preparation: Reading Skills

As you prepare to write essays you will be faced with more reading than you are probably used to. How can you improve your reading skills so that you read with greater speed and efficiency than before? You may be reading books or essay examples, but if your reading is holding you may miss vital details.

Essay Reading Skills

You don’t have to read the whole book or article. If a title has been recommended for an essay, you can skim through it and read the important points . See the table of contents and flick through the chapters to see which sections are relevant to your essay question. Captions for images and photographs can be useful too.

If you’re really stuck for time , just look at the abstract (if there is one) and the Introduction and Conclusion. You may not get the subtleties of every point in the argument, but much of the writer’s opinion will be set out in the introduction or summed up in the conclusion.

Make sure you have a comfortable place to do your reading . Consider the light available, temperature, noise levels and the comfort of your chair. Don’t make it harder on yourself by trying to read in dark, noisy or otherwise intolerable physical conditions.

Read with purpose. Academic study demands that you read material critically. You don’t have to agree with a source – in fact, often your tutor will be impressed that you have come up with a fresh point of view.

Essay Reading Difficulties

It can be difficult to admit as an adult that you have a problem with reading .

If you’re suffering from blurred vision or migraines when reading or after working on the computer for a while, visit the opticians. Reading for long hours in badly lit places may mean that your eyesight is changing.

There are a number of reading problems related to health , from dyslexia through to less well known health problems. If you are concerned that you have a health issue you may want to see a doctor to investigate the causes.

If it’s purely a case of motivation , make sure you read for pleasure as well as for your studies. You’ll be surprised at how often a book you read purely ‘for fun’ months ago becomes something you can usefully footnote in your essay writing.

Have a look at these:-

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How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Reading Comprehension Fundamentals

How to approach a reading comprehension passage, how to analyze a reading comprehension passage, how to prepare for reading comprehension questions on standardized tests, how to answer reading comprehension questions on standardized tests, resources for teaching reading comprehension.

To succeed in high school, college, and beyond, it is important not just to read, but to read effectively. For that reason, many of your in-class assessments and standardized tests ask you to read a passage and answer questions about it—an exercise often referred to as "critical reading." On college-entrance exams like the SAT and ACT, you might have to classify the passage by genre, identify the main idea, paraphrase, summarize, or define vocabulary in context; in some cases, you might have to analyze rhetoric, grammar, tone, and other aspects of prose composition. This guide is a collection of dozens of links to reading comprehension resources that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your reading and test-taking skills.

What is reading comprehension? Why is it important? The resources in this section help you get a grip on one of the fundamental aspects of education in English—or any language. It includes introductions to the concept of reading comprehension as well as general advice for reading in an academic context.

"What is Reading Comprehension?" (K12 Reader)

This page provides a solid yet succinct grounding in reading comprehension fundamentals, including an explanation of what reading comprehension is, how it develops, and why it's so important.

Wikipedia Article on "Reading Comprehension"

Wikipedia's article literally defines "reading comprehension," discussing its history, relationship to vocabulary, and strategies for improvement. It includes links to scientific studies and education journals.

"How and Why We Read" (YouTube)

In this seven minute video, John Green introduces his multi-part course—Crash Course English Literature—beginning with the importance of robust reading skills.

"10 Reading Comprehension Strategies All Students Need" (ThoughtCo)

Written by a former high school social studies teacher, this blog post provides 10 strategies educators can use to help students improve their reading comprehension. The list includes generating questions, reading aloud, annotating, summarizing, and more.

The first step to tackling any reading comprehension test is to read the passage. Having difficulty with genre, language, and style? Are you afraid of running out of time, or are you looking for ways to read quickly and efficiently? This section contains video tutorials and articles to help you approach reading comprehension passages.

"The Best Way to Read the Passage in SAT Reading" (Prep Scholar)

This blog post outlines the types of passages you might see on the SAT reading test—those relating to U.S. and World Literature, History and Social Studies, and Science—and the unique strategies you should use when approaching each one.

"Top 10 New SAT Reading Tips" (Magoosh)

This blog post discusses what and how to read outside of school to improve your reading skills, as well as how to familiarize yourself with the prose styles (even that tricky nineteenth-century Victorian prose) and question types on the exam.

"ACT Reading: How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension for Fiction Passages" (YouTube)

This video tutorial by Kaplan focuses on the ACT's fiction reading passages, giving you tips for approaching the fiction passage as well as answering questions about it.

"ACT Reading: How to Understand the Passage Despite the Science Jargon" (YouTube)

This video tutorial by Kaplan is geared toward the ACT's science reading passages, showing how to find what a passage is about without getting bogged down by confusing specialist vocabulary.

Once you've read the passage, you'll need to analyze it. What is the main idea? Can you point to supporting details and evidence? Can you summarize or paraphrase the passage? What is the passage's tone? The resources in this section help you break the passage down, making sure you understand the basics before you answer questions.

"How to Find the Main Idea" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post explains what the main idea is and how to identify it in a sentence, paragraph, or passage. Besides showing you how to use the passage's topic, summary, first and last sentences, and repeated words, it points out common mistakes to avoid.

"Finding the Main Idea When Reading" (Columbia College)

This webpage shares helpful hints: where the main idea is located (if explicitly stated), how to figure it out if it's implicit, and how to double-check if you've got the right main idea.

"How to Summarize a Passage With One-Sentence Summary Frames" (Classroom)

This helpful blog post discusses how to summarize longer passages succinctly using "frames," or templates such as "X happens because Y" or "X and Y are similar in that ____, but different in that ____."

"Summarizing a Paragraph" (Long Beach City College)

On this handout, you'll find a four-part method to use when summarizing: "preview and read," "make a list or outline," "write a summary," and "read aloud and correct." The method is demonstrated in a detailed example.

"Critical Reading Skill: Identifying Tone" (Brainfuse)

This page uses examples from the GRE (a test similar to the SAT and ACT, but for entrance to graduate school) to show how to identify tone while reading using key words, specific details, and comparisons.

Khan Academy Live: "SAT Reading Class" (YouTube)

This free, 40-minute class walks through the kinds of questions on the SAT, and how to read the passage with them in mind. Using the strategy of "Rephrase and Predict," you'll be equipped to answer two common question types: "Words in Context" and "Command of Evidence."

Still looking for ways to read better? Do you struggle to read everything in the time provided, or do you read so quickly that you don't remember what you've read? This section is filled with more resources to support your reading comprehension practice, including video tutorials and discussion forums relating to common standardized tests.

SAT Reading Test Tips Share Space (Khan Academy)

Scroll through this forum to see what advice other test-takers have for SAT reading comprehension. There are discussion boards for General Tips, as well as for the Writing and Language Test specifically; this is a place for people with different experiences and learning styles to respond to your questions.

"Most Common Mistake: SAT Reading" (YouTube)

SuperTutor identifies "ignoring context" as the most common mistake students make on the SAT Reading test. Take a look at her tutorial (which walks through example questions and answers) and see how to avoid this trap.

"Ultimate Guide to the New SAT Reading and Writing Test" (College Vine)

This blog post introduces you to the components of the current SAT Reading test, the skills it assesses, and the kinds of questions the test uses to assess those skills. The in-depth post is followed up with test-taking strategies and links to free study materials.

"Best ACT Reading Prep Strategies, Tips, and Tricks" (YouTube)

This video tutorial culls its most popular tips and tricks from a longer series by the same creators, Best ACT Prep. It shows how to budget time when reading, and how to read for the information you're likely to be asked to recall in the questions.

"How to Speed Read Your Way to ACT" Success (YouTube)

Slow readers will benefit particularly from this targeted video tutorial from Veritas Prep, which introduces you to the idea of "speed reading" (reading quickly for content) and how to execute it on the ACT. The video contains walk-through examples.

The two primary college entrance exams in the United States, the SAT and the ACT, contain reading comprehension sections. Use the resources in this section to prepare for those exams with tailored guides, quizzes, and exercises. Of course, because classroom assessments and state benchmark exams often mimic the format of the SAT and ACT, these tools might be equally useful in preparing for other reading comprehension tests.

SAT Suite of Assessments: Reading Test (College Board)

The College Board provides the official introduction to their reading test, including an overview of the exam structure, a video guide, descriptions of passage and question types, and links to sample questions.

"How to Get 800 on SAT Reading" (Prep Scholar)

This in-depth blog post begins with an overview of the SAT Reading, along with thoughts on why it's important to get a good score. It contains a breakdown of how scoring works, plus 11 strategies from a student who got a perfect score on the SAT Reading section.

ACT: Description of Reading Test (ACT, Inc.)

ACT, Inc. provides the official introduction to their reading test. This page describes the three components ("Key Ideas and Details," "Craft and Structure," and "Integration of Knowledge and Ideas") as well as links to sample questions.

"How To Get 36 on ACT Reading" (Prep Scholar)

This extensive blog post begins with an overview of the ACT Reading, along with thoughts on why it's important to get a good score. It features a breakdown of how scoring works, plus 11 strategies from an ACT perfect scorer.

The ACT and the SAT are designed to trick you; questions based on reading comprehension passages not only test your ability to understand what something says, but also your ability to contextualize and extrapolate from it. This section is filled with resources specifically designed for answering questions on college-entrance exams.

"ACT Reading: How to Solve Reading Comprehension Questions" (YouTube)

This video tutorial from Kaplan gives a step-by-step account of how to tackle a reading comprehension question. It suggests questions you can ask yourself while reading the passage, then walks through example questions, demonstrating strategies like focusing on key words and returning to the passage.

"Using Key Words to Answer Questions on the SAT Reading Section" (YouTube)

Veritas Prep suggests using "key words" to search for an answer back in the passage. This two minute tutorial shows how to navigate longer passages effectively when confronted with an information-based question.

"Tips, Tricks, Strategies for the SAT Reading Section" (YouTube)

SuperTutor's SAT crash course walks through example questions on plot, tone, and passage structure, giving you strategies tailored to each of these common question types.

"5 Rules (And One Secret Weapon) for Acing Multiple Choice Tests" (YouTube)

Thomas Frank offers general strategies for multiple choice tests beyond the proverbial "when in doubt, choose C." He shows how to use words in the question to eliminate answers that are obviously wrong, thus narrowing your choices and helping you save time.

Looking for activities, worksheets, games, and practice tests to improve your students' reading comprehension? This section contains everything from complete lesson plans to sample reading comprehension passages (even mobile apps!) that will supplement your work in the classroom.

Reading Comprehension Classroom Activities

"A 'New English' in Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'" (National Endowment for the Humanities)

This complete lesson plan includes reading assignments, learning objectives, activities, and take-home assignments geared toward assessing the relationship between language, globalization, and multiculturalism in Chinua Achebe's classic novel.

"'Their Eyes Were Watching God': Folk Speech and Figurative Language" (National Endowment for the Humanities)

This complete lesson plan includes reading assignments, learning objectives, activities, and take-home assignments around the topic of metaphor and idiom in Zora Neale Hurston's classic novel.

"Benjamin Franklin's Satire of Witch-Hunting" (America in Class)

This passage is paired with interactive student PDFs and reading comprehension exercises. Exemplifying all that's difficult about nonfiction, satire, and eighteenth-century prose, this activity familiarizes students with a kind of passage they're likely to encounter on the SAT or ACT.

"One-Page Nonfiction Readings, Grades 8 - 10" (DePaul University)

DePaul University curates this suite of one-page PDFs for in-class reading comprehension practice, ranging from political speeches to scientific reports on climate change.

Reading Comprehension Worksheets

"Nonfiction Reading Comprehension Worksheets" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post brings together seven nonfiction reading passages and worksheets to challenge your students. Topics span the scientific (on the role of the carbohydrate in nutrition) to the humanistic ("Minimalism in Art and Design") to the historical (Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?").

"Reading Comprehension Worksheets Grades 1 - 12" (K12 Learning)

K12 has a bank of worksheets organized by grade level. The ten high school worksheets included cover fiction and nonfiction passages, and are paired with questions that simulate the standardized test experience.

"Free Reading Comprehension Worksheets" (BusyTeacher.org)

This web page is stacked with over 1,000 free, downloadable PDF worksheets for all grade levels. Some of the worksheets are short passages with questions, while others are visual organizers and other tools to improve general reading comprehension skills.

"All Reading Worksheets" (E Reading Worksheets)

This former teacher's personal blog is a treasure trove of reading comprehension worksheets. It's notable for organizing worksheets by skill (e.g. "Author's Purpose," "Story Structure," and "Setting") so that you can target specific aspects of reading comprehension and passage analysis.

Reading Comprehension Games

"SAT Reading and Writing Practice" (Khan Academy)

These free tutorials and games are the perfect way to prepare for the SAT or, indeed, any reading comprehension exercise. They're organized by passage type: Science, Literature, History and Social Studies, and Social Science.

Daily Practice for the New SAT (College Board)

This mobile app created by the College Board sends a practice question to your phone each day. You can also use the app to automatically grade practice tests that you print out from the website and complete on your own.

"High School Reading Activities" (Bright Hub Education)

The ideas listed in this blog post will help you liven up any class period devoted to reading comprehension with group activities like wipe-board read-aloud sessions and classroom debates.

"Games for Students to Help Build Comprehension: Teaching with Games" (eHow via YouTube)

This eHow tutorial for teachers (hosted by a veteran English teacher) is packed with reading comprehension game ideas: the "Connection Chain," "What Book Am I?," "Visualization," and "Literary Elements Jeopardy."

Reading Comprehension Practice Tests

New SAT Practice Tests (College Board)

The printable full-length practice tests on this page will familiarize you with the Reading and Writing test formats; CollegeBoard even gives you instructions on timing and set-up that will help you mimic the conditions of an actual exam.

The ACT Reading Practice Tests (ACT, Inc.)

These official, interactive ACT practice questions give you a sense of what to expect on test day. The page also links to full-length, printable practice tests.

"STAAR Released Test Questions" (Texas Education Agency)

Preparing for a state benchmark exam? This page contains links to official practice questions for end-of-course exams in every grade level in the state of Texas—just one such bank of state resources on the web (and the largest!).

"Reading Comprehension Questions" for GRE (Educational Testing Service)

Although the GRE is a graduate entrance exam, the reading comprehension section is very similar to the SAT, ACT, and other high-school level standardized tests. Take a look at the official practice questions on this page.

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Improving Student Writing through Reading Strategies

In their MLA Style Center post “Reading Is Not One Thing,” Annie Del Principe and Rachel Ihara make some excellent points about student reading behaviors. They observe that reading a text carefully while marking key passages and making notes in the margins, while once traditional, is no longer required in every class or discipline. The cursory, nonlinear reading that many students do often yields the information they are looking for, especially online. Perhaps this should not surprise us. As Del Principe and Ihara note, experienced academic readers also read selectively to see if a text merits closer attention. (In fact, I skimmed Del Principe and Ihara’s article the first time through!) The authors argue that “[t]hese strategies are not shortcuts or signs of laziness; rather, they are skillful, smart approaches appropriate to our goals and purposes and to the genres we are reading.” I agree in many instances.

Why Deep Reading Is Valuable

That said, what Nicholas Carr characterizes as deep reading is still a valuable skill (97). For one thing, good writing is unlikely without deep reading. Composition courses emphasize documentation (as readers of The MLA Style Center know), but students also learn about essay content and structure from exposure to effective models . Instructors can teach students to notice and analyze authors’ rhetorical moves and to practice applying those techniques in their own writing.

In the classroom, writing instructors may focus on fewer texts so they can spend time helping students read more actively and deeply. In my classes, I demonstrate how I approach an article, a story, or a poem by “thinking aloud” to show the mental connections I make when I read (Schoenbach et al. 101). I read a few lines of the text (a paragraph or less) out loud slowly, verbalizing the thoughts, questions, and associations that come to my mind as I read. After I model the process, students take turns verbalizing their own reading thoughts in pairs or small groups. I also show various ways to annotate or mark the text and, again, give students time to experiment. As the semester progresses, students use these reading strategies and others to connect with assigned texts both in and outside class. Our group discussions are better, and many students seem more engaged as a result.

How Reading and Writing Intersect

In more than twenty years of experience teaching composition and working in a writing center, I have seen many ways that reading intersects with writing:

In all disciplines, reading is an important precursor to writing on a purely informational level. Students must understand a topic before they can write coherently about it. They must do the research before they can write a research paper.
Students who read widely (in any genre) usually have a greater command of vocabulary and the nuances of written expression. Many readers also absorb correct grammar and punctuation subconsciously, whether or not they know the rules behind when to use a comma. The poet Jane Kenyon’s advice to “have good sentences in your ears” is often quoted for a reason (qtd. in Popova) .
This relationship between reading and writing is not a new concept. Reflecting on his writing process, for instance, the popular author Stephen King notes the value of ineffective models as well as inspirational ones. “One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose,” he says. In contrast, “[g]ood writing . . . teaches the learning writer about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth telling” (211). While fiction writing is less emphasized in academia, the principle holds true.
Finally, college writers need a deeper knowledge of their subject to think—and write—critically about it. Whether it be anthropology, economics, or literature, that knowledge often comes from scholarly articles and books, whether in print or online.

In our digital society, we have become accustomed to easy access to information; however, the metacognitive work of active reading is still necessary for effective writing. Google and YouTube are useful, but there are things they cannot provide.

Using Reading Strategies in the Writing Center

Learning assistance benefits from cross-pollination with reading as well. Some training and practice with reading strategies is a valuable addition to the skills of any tutor, especially in the writing center. Writing tutors focus primarily on the process of developing an essay, but they can also demonstrate and encourage reading strategies on multiple levels:

The text that tutors and students look at together most frequently is the writing prompt assigned by the teacher. Tutors should model how to break the prompt into manageable parts; point out questions, key terms, and other significant features; and help tutees interpret unfamiliar vocabulary.
Tutors can read both writing prompts and student papers aloud and verbalize their thoughts. This gives tutees some “reader response” feedback and often helps them feel more comfortable sharing their own thoughts and questions.
Embedded tutors who work with students in a specific class have even more opportunity to coach students in reading skills because they are familiar with the teacher’s expectations and the assigned texts as well as the required writing.

Ultimately, tutors are ideally situated to support metacognitive development by helping students recognize, evaluate, and adapt the ways they approach both reading and writing in college courses.

Modeling Literacy Expectations

Reading—in all its variety—is a key method of accessing information and understanding concepts in every academic field and in the world at large. Students have limited experience, so college instructors who want their students to engage effectively with the course material must take responsibility for explaining and modeling the literacy expectations of their disciplines. Tutors can help, but teachers need to “make the invisible visible” by showing students the cognitive moves that seem natural to them after years of study and specialization (Schoenbach et al. 23). To quote Del Principe and Ihara again, we must “slow down our instructional pace to make space to model and enact the types of reading we think are valuable and will work best in our classes for our students.” Then we must scaffold assignments that facilitate their learning. This takes time and effort, but the results are worth it for both students and instructors.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology , edited by Samuel Cohen, 5th ed., Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 87–97.

Del Principe, Annie, and Rachel Ihara. “Reading Is Not One Thing.” The MLA Style Center , 27 Aug. 2019, style.mla.org/variability-of-reading-practices/.

King, Stephen. “Reading to Write.” 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology , edited by Samuel Cohen, 5th ed., Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 210–14.

Popova, Maria. “Poet Jane Kenyon’s Advice on Writing: Some of the Wisest Words to Create and Live By.” Brain Pickings , 15 Sept. 2015, www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/15/jane-kenyon-advice-on-writing/.

Schoenbach, Ruth, et al. Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms . 2nd ed., Jossey Bass, 2012.

Jamil 10 November 2021 AT 01:11 PM

Your article is excellent

Your e-mail address will not be published

Sophy sophi 16 November 2021 AT 12:11 AM

The work is awesome...what are the reading strategies that one can adopt that can help in writing a term paper?

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How to Improve Your English Reading Skills

Reading comprehension, or your ability to understand what you read, is a key skill that should be trained to make sure that you understand the words on the pages whenever you read an English book.

While reading more is one way to work on your comprehension, there are tips and methods you can implement to make your reading more effective.

This article will help you improve your English reading skills with proven strategies for smarter, more efficient reading practice.

1. Make Special Time to Read

2. use a good dictionary, 3. use context clues, 4. learn to read english with the right books, 5. check the difficulty level, 6. do both intensive and extensive reading, 7. read more smoothly with sight words, 8. get familiar with english spelling conventions, 9. focus on repeated words, 10. remember vocabulary with flashcards, 11. make a language journal, 12. ask yourself questions , 13. look for clues to “get the gist”, 14. break up readings into chunks, 15. write a summary, 16. discuss the text, 17. reread short articles, 18. do reading comprehension exercises, 19. read many kinds of texts, 20. read and listen with subtitles, 21. check popular forums and blogs, 22. be consistent with reading, reading recommendations by level, beginner to intermediate, intermediate, intermediate to advanced, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

If you’re reading to improve your comprehension, you need to focus and study.

This means making a special time for reading without risk of being interrupted. You should try to spend at least 30 minutes every day on focused reading.

To turn your reading process into a ritual:

Find a quiet, comfortable spot with bright lighting to sit.
Get everything you might need ready before you sit down, such as a pen, notebook and something to drink.
Decide how long you will read.
Put all your electronics on silent mode (or turn them off) and put them away.

If you have a specific process for reading practice, then your brain will know when you’re about to work on your comprehension. As a result, you’ll be more focused before you even start.

If you’re a beginner learner, choose an English dictionary that translates words into your native language. There are also learner’s dictionaries, which explain words using simple terms.

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For more advanced learners, I recommend using a monolingual dictionary—one that has definitions only in English with no translations. Monolingual dictionaries force you to think in English rather than relying on your native language.

For a dictionary that translates English into multiple languages , check out WordReference . It covers dozens of languages, such as French, German, Russian, Japanese and Dutch. WordReference also has a monolingual English dictionary.

For online content, you can use LingQ ‘s built-in translation features. LingQ allows you to choose unknown words in any text, get an automatic translation and then convert those words to flashcards.

Just because you find a good dictionary doesn’t mean you should look up every single new word!

Using context clues means trying to understand a new word by looking at what’s around it. If you’re stuck on a word you don’t know, try looking at the whole sentence for a hint about what it means .

Don’t stop to look up every new word. It’s harder to focus on your reading if you keep interrupting it. You can write down the word and look it up later. Only look up a word if without it, you can’t understand what you’re reading.

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When you’re choosing books (and other texts) to read, keep two things in mind:

1. What you’re interested in

2. Your reading level

Whenever you can, you should read things that you enjoy. You should also choose books that are at an English level just above the one you’re most comfortable with . You want to challenge yourself enough to learn new things, but not so much that you frustrated with your reading.

You can use this test from the British Council’s Learn English website to get a general idea of your reading level:

Beginners should aim for texts specifically made for beginner learners . These include dialogues, short readings about common topics or children’s books.
Intermediate learners can read longer texts, news articles and popular novels with simpler language.
Advanced learners can read almost anything, but should approach some classic literature such as Shakespeare’s plays with caution.

Not sure where to start? There are lots of places online where you can find recommendations for books to learn English reading:

Listopia on Goodreads is full of lists created by people just like you.
What Should I Read Next? gives you book recommendations based on a book that you like or even a list of your favorites.
Jellybooks helps you discover new books and sample 10%, which means you can try the book and see if it’s a good fit for you.
Whichbook is a very different kind of website—you choose the kinds of things you’re looking for in a book (happy/sad, beautiful/disgusting) and the website gives you suggestions based on that.

I’ve also added a detailed list of reading recommendations per level at the end of this post.

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Once you’ve picked a book, double-check its difficulty level by making sure that it has no more than 10% unknown words .

Count the number of words on a page or paragraph, and then count the number of words you don’t recognize. Divide the number of unknown words by the number of total words, multiply by 100, and you’ll see what percentage of words you don’t know.

Here’s a rough guide:

0-2% new words: The text is too easy for you.
4%-6% new words: The text is just right.
8% new words: This text might be too hard for you. (You might try it anyway if it’s something you really want to read.)
10% (or more) new words: This text is too hard right now. Set it aside for later, when you’ve learned more English words.

There are two kinds of English reading that you have to practice: Intensive reading and extensive reading.

Intensive reading is when you try to understand every word on the page .

This is the kind of reading you do when you have some time to focus. Most of the tips below are about how to make the most out of intensive reading.

When you practice intensive reading, pick a fairly short text that interests you. If you have a really long text—or you just don’t care about the topic—you might give up before you finish.

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Aside from intensive reading, you also need to do extensive reading , which simply means casually reading anything you see in English . Don’t stress. Don’t worry about what every word means.

Read a new recipe. Read an email. Read a blog post.

Read billboards along the highway. Read newspaper headlines.

It doesn’t matter what you read—just read in English. Anything. Everything.

The more extensive reading you do, the more comfortable you’ll be with reading in English.

Fluency is how smoothly you can read. When you read in your head, you should have a certain rhythm to the words, understanding full sentences rather than going one word at a time. The words should flow together naturally, like when somebody is talking.

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To improve your fluency, look out for “sight words.” These are words that you should know by sight and should not have to think about how to read them.

Find a good list of sight words, like this one , and take about a minute or two every day to read the words as fast as you can.

English spelling often doesn’t reflect the actual sounds of a word . When you read in English, the voice in your head can get stuck on new words that you don’t know how to pronounce.

Don’t be discouraged!

By learning common spelling conventions, that reading voice will maintain the flow of English and you’ll improve your overall reading ability:

kn: The kn- at the beginning of a word is pronounced as simply n , as in the words “know” and “knife.”
wh: The -h- in wh- words such as “what” or “when” is silent and isn’t pronounced.
c : This letter typically sounds like s before the vowels e, i or y, like in the word “city.” Otherwise, it typically sounds like k, like in the word “cat.”

It’s important to be smart about which words you look up as you read. I recommend looking up words that are repeated more than three times in a passage , or words that appear crucial to the meaning of a sentence.

In other words, don’t look up every single unknown word while you’re reading. Think about it—it’ll get boring and break up the flow of reading.

When you read a text for the first time, underline or highlight unknown words .

Once you’re done reading, go back and identify the repeated words and words that are crucial to understanding. Now you can look those up and write down translations or definitions.

Finally, read the text again with your word list and watch as you understand the text more fully.

A great way to build up your vocabulary and reading fluency is to create flashcards of important words. But don’t just stop there: Review these flashcards often .

While reading, keep your word lists or flashcards handy. You can refer to these if that word comes up again while reading for fast translation.

As you come across these words while reading new content, move them to the back of your flashcard pile. This counts as review, and you don’t need to review words if you feel you’ve already learned them!

Anki is a great app for creating your own digital flashcards and accessing them on the go.

Aside from making flashcards, you can use a language journal (notebook) for practice.

In the pages of your journal, try writing sentences with your new English vocabulary . Make your own definition for each English word you’ve learned. Use colored pencils to draw pictures of what the words mean.

Every once in a while, look back at older pages in your language journal. Review words to keep your memories of them strong. And feel proud of how much you’ve learned!

Taking notes and asking yourself questions can help you really understand an English text.

Before you read , here are a few questions you can ask yourself to prepare:

Are there any words in bold or italics ?
Are there titles or subtitles?
What are some of the names mentioned?
Is there a lot of dialogue?
Are the paragraphs short or long?

While you’re reading , try asking these questions:

What’s happening now?
Who’s speaking here?
Why did he do that?
What is she thinking?

After reading , the questions below can also get you think about what you did and did not understand:

What was the text about?
What are the most important things that happened in the text?
Did anything confuse you?
Did anything surprise you?
Are there any parts you didn’t understand?

The gist is the overall meaning. Practice using clues to get the gist of a text quickly and effectively. Use these tips to improve your overall understand of what you’re reading.

For example:

Use a highlighter to identify important information or main ideas in the text.
Pay attention to verb tenses so that you understand the timeline of the story. (Are past, present or future events being described?)
Examine any images that accompany the text. These images often give vital information and can help your understanding.

Reading can be tiring, so break it up into manageable chunks (pieces). Aim for between one and three paragraphs to start. As you build your skills, you can start reading with longer and longer chunks of text.

You can also simply break up your reading by time. In particular, I recommend trying the Pomodoro method . For every 25 minutes of reading, take a five-minute break to give your brain a rest.

After reading a text, you can write a short summary of what you’ve read. This can just be a couple of sentences that present the main ideas .

Writing a summary is a great way to reinforce what the text was about as well as use new vocabulary in context. I like to write summaries down in my notebook and then underline the new vocabulary that I learned from reading the text.

Writing summaries will also help you notice any parts of the text that you didn’t fully understand, so you can go back and re-read.

Call upon an English-speaking friend or conversation partner to help you understand what you read.

You can explain the text to them. Your friend could then ask you questions about what you’ve read.

By talking about what you’ve read with a fluent English speaker , you can make sure that you understood the text. Another bonus is that you’ll practice listening and speaking in English.

Sometimes reading a text just once isn’t enough to understand it. Rereading is great for finding things you might have missed the first time and reviewing new words.

Try these out:

Choose something that takes less than five minutes to read . This can be a story or a news article.
Read the text at your own pace, then write down everything you can remember–every little detail, even parts of sentences if you remember them.
Read the text again and write down what you can remember. Do you see how much more you remember the second time around?

Every time you read something, you understand more of it. When you want to get the most out of your reading, try reading three or more times:

The first time, focus on understanding the words.
The second time, focus on the meaning.
The third time, you can start asking deeper questions like “what is the author really trying to say?” or “how does this news affect the rest of the world?”

For more structured practice, you can do reading comprehension exercises, which are designed to test how much you understand and improve your reading ability.

Generally, these exercises start with a short text. Then you have to answer multiple choice or fill-in-the-blanks questions, or even longer written responses about the text.

Whatever your level, here are some useful places to find online reading comprehension exercises:

AgendaWeb offers texts for all levels of English as well as short stories and fairy tales that include audio.
My English Pages has hundreds of exercises for various topics including science, history and biographies.
The ESL Lounge also has exercises broken into four levels.

To find even more online, look up “ESL reading comprehension quiz.”

Today we don’t just read books and newspapers. We read blogs, emails, Tweets and chats. The more you read anything in English, the better you’ll get at the language.

Magazine Line is a good place to go to find digital or print magazines on just about any subject. They give you lower prices on magazine subscriptions, and you may be able to save even more if you’re a student .

You can also check out aggregators —websites that take news and interesting articles and put them together for you to look through. A couple of useful aggregators are Mix , which helps you find new websites based on your interests, and Digg , which collects interesting stories from around the Internet onto one page.

It might seem strange, but another great way to practice reading is to watch English videos with subtitles or transcripts .

That way, you will read the words while hearing how a native speaker says them. Because English is not a phonetic language, the subtitles remind you how to spell a certain word, regardless of the sound.

Watching movies and videos is probably the most fun and interactive way of learning English. I don’t know about you, but I spent a lot of my younger years watching “Friends” and learned a lot of English from the TV show.

You can do similar things with TED Talks or Netflix .

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

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Read the transcript before you watch the video, then read along with the subtitles as the video plays. Since you have to keep up with the speed of the video, you’ll be training your fluency this way.

Do you know that ChatGPT , the chatbot that is making waves all over the internet because of how well it can communicate, read Reddit threads to teach itself language?

Forums like Reddit , Quora and Yahoo Answers contain English in its most natural forms, as it is all written casually by native speakers. Even if there are spelling and grammar mistakes, conversations are mostly enlightening, natural and full of everyday words.

Aside from forums, you can add some personality and fun to your English reading practice with blogs in English . They discuss all kinds of topics in a lively and friendly way. You can even be part of the conversation—and practice your English writing skills—by leaving a comment now and then!

Perhaps the most important tip to learn English reading is to make sure you read consistently. Remember, a little bit of reading every day is better than reading a lot once a month. Aim to create a reading habit!

If you become frustrated or bored, I suggest changing your reading material. Reading things you’re interested in will improve your reading skills tremendously, and the best way to become better at reading English is to read what you enjoy.

Now that you know how to maximize your English reading, I’ll show you what kind of English texts would work well for you based on your level:

Children’s picture books — These books have simple words and pictures, and they teach you basic English words so you can talk about the world around you. Some of them are funny and some of them are touching (sweet or emotional).
Easy fairy tales — These magical stories have been told for many, many years. They’re a part of cultures all over the world. Chance are, you probably know a few of them already—which will make it even easier for you to understand them.
Simple short stories — Aside from fairy tales, many short stories are easy enough for beginning English learners because they use simple language to make you think about big, important ideas.
Graded readers – These are specially made for learners, with lots of different themes. There aren’t too many hard words, but you’ll still find new ones to learn. Some of the readers come with audio, so you can listen to the stories as you read them.
Bilingual readers – In these special books , the text is in both English and your native language. You can focus on the English text and only look at the translation when you need a little help.
Superhero comics – Superhero comic books are exciting, filled with colorful characters and illustrations (drawings). You’ll recognize the characters, like Superman and Batman, from television and films.
Popular books – Keep up with the crowd with these best-selling books. Find thrillers, suspense, romance and more. Popular books are some of the best books to learn English !
Translated books from your own culture — You first read a book in your own language, from your own culture. Then you find an English translated version of it, read that through, and carefully compare the two versions. Some examples of books in a language pair are: “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” (French) — “The Count of Monte Cristo, ” “Ngược dòng nước lũ” (Vietnamese) — “Against the Flood” and “Cien años de soledad” (Spanish) — “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”
Short stories — Challenge yourself in just a few minutes a day with intermediate-level short stories in English that you can read quickly. You can even find some new English words to learn with these spooky (scary) ghost stories in English .
Interactive Books — Get extra adventure with these books that let you decide what happens . There are also text-based video games such as Zork that you can read like a book.
Long reads — These are usually long articles that offers a wider and more complex perspective on contemporary issues. The quality of writing is high, so you can benefit from the best writing and best information. You can find long reads on websites such as Longreads and Reddit’s Longreads subreddit . My favorite source for long reads is The Guardian because the articles are also recorded and published as podcasts .
Funny stories — These books take humor to a more grown-up level, with parody that pokes fun at (makes fun of) serious subjects and puns that play with English words. Humor can be hard to translate, so reading these will help you better understand English-speaking cultures.
Fantasy and science fiction — These books often use imaginative ideas that take you beyond simple English words. Some fantastic reads for intermediate English learners are “Harry Potter” , “A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “The Martian Chronicles.”
TV tie-in books and movie novelizations — Read novelizations (movies written as books) of your favorite films or choose stories with familiar characters from the television shows you love. There are series of novels related to popular shows, such as “A Game of Thrones,” “Star Trek,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Charmed.”
Simple poems — Poems can say volumes in just a few short words. They often use words you won’t find in everyday English conversation, and they help you learn the rhythm of English. Try reading and studying a few poems perfect for learning English . You can also watch slam poetry performances with transcripts, like “A love poem for lonely prime numbers” and “If I should have a daughter…”
Classic books — A book becomes “classic” because it stands the test of time. Reading the “classics”—important pieces of English literature—can help you better understand the culture of the English-speaking world. Most classic books are available for free to read online , on cool websites like Project Gutenberg . Some of my favorites include “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Emma” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
Iconic plays — A lot of English-language plays have influenced (made their mark on) how people think about certain subjects. Try reading some of these well-known plays aloud, since they’re meant to be performed: “Our Town,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Literary poems — Literary poems can be tricky to read even for native speakers! If you’re up for a challenge and want to read classic poems, study the works of Edgar Allan Poe , T.S. Eliot or Emily Dickinson . Another great source of literary poems is Poetry Foundation , which features a mix of classic and modern poems.

Learning to read English might take time, but it pays off a lot because you’ll have so much fun, widen your cultural knowledge and improve other skills at the same time.

Pick the reading tips and resources that suit you best or try all of them out to bring your English to the highest level of fluency!

If you like learning English through movies and online media, you should also check out FluentU. FluentU lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials , as you can see here:

If you want to watch it, the FluentU app has probably got it.

The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.

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FluentU lets you learn engaging content with world famous celebrities.

For example, when you tap on the word "searching," you see this:

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FluentU lets you tap to look up any word.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with quizzes. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.

FluentU helps you learn fast with useful questions and multiple examples. Learn more.

The best part? FluentU remembers the vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a truly personalized experience.

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11 Proven Tips to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills for Students

Written by Maria Kampen

Teaching Activities
Prodigy English

A female student reads a book in a school library and practices reading comprehension.

What is reading comprehension and why is it important?
Two core components of comprehension
11 Ways to improve reading comprehension skills
How parents can encourage reading comprehension at home

Cookbooks, social media, instruction manuals — no matter where you look, we live our lives surrounded by words. That’s why reading comprehension is one of the most valuable skills a student can master.

But it’s not automatic. Reading comprehension needs to be taught in the classroom to have a lasting impact, whether you’re teaching kindergarten or high school English.

Many students struggle with reading comprehension and understanding for a variety of reasons:

They prefer a different learning style
They’re not interested in reading or writing
They don’t have the necessary prior knowledge to understand the text
They have trouble focusing on one word at a time and skip important ideas
They’re working with a learning need like dyslexia that makes understanding written materials difficult

Every student deserves the chance to build critical comprehension skills. Keep reading for eleven strategies you can use in your classroom to help students love reading!

Reading comprehension is a reader’s ability to understand the explicit and implicit meaning of a text , or piece of writing.

It moves beyond vocabulary knowledge and word recognition to add meaning. When students use reading comprehension skills, they’re turning words into thoughts and ideas.

Reading is one of the most important ways students and adults learn new information. As one study in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences states: "Reading comprehension is one of the most complex cognitive activities in which humans engage, making it difficult to teach, measure, and research."

Reading comprehension can also help struggling readers build enjoyment of reading and participate more fully in lessons.

And it’s not just for the classroom, either — reading comprehension has real-life applications for readers of all ages. It can:

Equip readers to make good day-to-day decisions with available information
Give readers the ability to think critically about what they read online and in the news
Help readers decipher meaning in recipes, directions or other step-by-step instructions
Help students move past word recognition into understanding and remembering the text

Improving reading comprehension can help your students become successful readers in and out of the classroom for the rest of their lives.

A student points at words in a picture book as they practice reading comprehension skills.

The two main components of reading comprehension are vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension . Both of these skills combine to help students get the most out of a text.

Vocabulary knowledge

Vocabulary knowledge is where reading comprehension starts . Students with good vocabulary strategies understand what words mean and have the background knowledge to understand a given text.

It also includes strategies for using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. The reading comprehension process is over before it begins if students don’t have solid vocabulary knowledge or the ability to learn new words.

Text comprehension

Text comprehension is a big-picture look at what, exactly, a text means. It helps students interact with a text to understand what’s being said and what they need to learn from it.

When students have good text comprehension skills, they can answer questions about what the author is saying, summarize the passage and connect information between texts or prior knowledge.

In short, it helps them move beyond literal comprehension and into higher levels of thinking.

A young girl in a pink shirt reads a storybook to improve reading comprehension skills.

Whether you’re teaching high school or elementary school, it’s never too late to use reading comprehension strategies to improve understanding, boost retention and make connections. Every student is different, so adjust your teaching methods accordingly!

Some of the most effective reading comprehension strategies include:

1. Build on existing knowledge

One of the biggest barriers to reading comprehension is a lack of background knowledge.

If you’re reading a text about astronomy, for example, ask students to record or explain what they already know about the solar system. For easy insights, have students answer quick questions or fill out a KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart and share the results.

Or read non-fiction and fiction books that cover the same or overlapping topic. For example, a non-fiction book about pigs and a picture book that includes pigs as characters. Teachers can reference the facts from the non-fiction book to discuss what is fact versus fiction.

Make sure all students understand key terms and ideas before you read the text, so everyone starts on the same page (literally). This helps students draw inferences and make connections between the text and things they already know, levelling the playing field when it comes to prior knowledge.

2. Identify and summarize key ideas

After students read, summarizing a text can help them pull out main points and absorb more information .

As you introduce summarization, guide students through with leading questions and a specific structure — length, key points, etc. Use the “I do, we do, you do” format to model good summarization techniques.

As you model the practice, teach students how to:

Separate facts from opinions
Find key ideas amid extra information
Identify important words and phrases
Look up vocabulary they don’t understand

Teaching students how to do this consciously helps train their brains to start summarizing automatically, leading to better reading comprehension overall.

3. Use online resources

Thanks to the internet, reading doesn't just happen IRL — it's online, too! There are lots of resources you can use in your classroom to engage kids with different interests as they practice their reading comprehension.

Prodigy English is a brand-new adventure that introduces kids to a world filled with adventures, wishes and more ways to love reading.

Its game-based platform encourages students to answer curriculum-aligned reading and language questions to get more energy. Once players are energized, they can gather resources from an ever-growing world, craft items, earn coins and build their very own village.

As they play, you'll be able to track their progress and achievement. Sign up for a free teacher account today!

4. Use visual aids

A teacher reading a picture book to a group of students sitting on floor mats as they work on improving reading comprehension skills.

To help students build a picture in their minds of what they’re reading, use visual aids and visualization techniques.

Start by reading aloud and asking students to try and picture what’s happening in their heads . After, use writing prompts like:

What colors did you see the most?
What do you think the setting looked like?
How would you describe the main character?
What sounds do you think you would hear in the world of the story?

Have students draw out a scene, character or story for even more understanding. They can make a family tree of the characters or fun notes to help them remember the key points in the story!

Anchor charts, word walls or picture books can also help reinforce key concepts for your students. When they’re able to visualize the story or information they’re reading, they’re more likely to retain key information.

5. Develop vocabulary skills

Vocabulary is an important part of understanding a text and is vital for reading ease and fluency. Vocabulary teaching strategies can help students build the tools to understand new words on their own .

To help students learn and remember new words, try:

Making a word wall in your classroom
Pairing new words with physical actions
Creating graphic organizers that help relate known words to new ones

Read-aloud strategies can also help you model the process of learning new words for students. Show them how to use context clues to find meaning, and have them make a vocabulary list of all the new words they know or want to learn.

6. Implement thinking strategies

To encourage students to engage critically with a text, ask questions about:

Where they can spot bias in the material
Why the author chose a particular genre or style
What they think happened before or after the story
Why characters responded to situations the way they did

These questions get students thinking about the deeper meaning in a text and help them use critical thinking skills as they look for key points. Encourage students to ask clarifying questions when they don’t know what the text is saying, or build mind maps to draw connections between ideas and prior knowledge.

7. Create question and answer scenarios

A young student sits at her desk and works on a reading comprehension activitiy.

Questioning students on different aspects of the text helps them examine it with fresh eyes and find new ways of interpreting it.

Use questions that challenge students to find the answers:

In several different parts of the text
On their own, using background knowledge
In their own opinions and responses to the text

Ask students questions to clarify meaning, help them understand characters better, make predictions or help them understand the author’s intent.

Whether you’re answering these questions in a group or individually, they’ll help students make a habit of asking questions and using critical thinking skills. After all, the magic happens when students start thinking beyond the page!

8. Encourage reciprocal teaching

Reciprocal teaching gives students four strategies for reading comprehension and uses specific techniques to get them involved in interrogating a text.

Using the “I do, we do, you do” method, follow the four building blocks of reciprocal teaching:

Predicting — Asking questions about what’s going to happen in the story and after it’s done.
Questioning — Asking questions about the who, what, when, where, how and why of a story.
Clarifying — Helping students recognize their confusion, identify what’s confusing them and taking steps towards understanding.
Summarizing — Condensing a reading to its most important facts and ideas.

Check out four reciprocal teaching strategies to use in your classroom.

9. Use summarizing techniques

Although it might seem tedious for students at first, summarizing techniques help them learn how to find and bring together key ideas . It trains them to automatically synthesize information as they read, and can benefit learners of all levels.

When students first encounter a text, have them write a summary and encourage them to refine it until it only includes the essential information. Ask clarifying questions to guide their writing, including:

What is the main idea of this passage?
What details support the main idea in the story?
What unnecessary information did the author include?

This helps them see how parts of a story are connected and emphasizes the importance of providing textual support to their argument and summaries.

10. Ask students to make predictions

Two students work through a reading workbook during reading comprehension activities.

Predictions happen when students use the evidence from the beginning of a text to guess:

What will happen next
What they think the text will be about
What details an author will use to support their argument

At the beginning of a reading, have students record their predictions. Once the reading is over, have a discussion about what they got right and what they got wrong. What made them think of their prediction? Did the author follow their expectations, or subvert them?

Model predictions with a think-aloud or give students blank statements that guide their thinking.

Not only does this build reading comprehension, but it encourages students to engage with the material critically and teaches them how to build solid, text-based arguments.

11. Try making inferences

When students make inferences, they’re using the information they know to make a guess about what they don’t .

Instead of just predicting what’s going to happen next, students make inferences about information outside the story — what happened before the story started, what genre the story is or what happens after the story is over.

Like predicting, you can model inferences with read-alouds or guided questioning. Have students write a prequel to the story, or build a character background based on textual evidence.

Inferences help students draw conclusions between the text and their prior knowledge about how the world works. Plus, it can help boost their creativity!

Two parents read with their daughter at home.

Reading doesn’t stop when children leave the classroom. Parents, you have an important opportunity to support reading comprehension at home, too.

1. Read aloud with your children

Reading with your child has lots of benefits — it helps you bond, it builds their imagination and it’s fun!

As you read, discuss topics and ask your child guiding questions about what’s happening. What do they think will happen next? Which character would they most like to be friends with? What would they do if they were the main character?

Not only do these questions make reading fun, it can help strengthen their reading comprehension skills.

2. Buy or borrow books at the right reading level

Whether it’s your local bookstore or library branch, there are always books available at your child’s reading level.

If your child is reading books that are too easy, they’ll get bored. But if books are too hard, they’ll get discouraged. Talk to your child’s teacher about how to find books in their sweet spot.

Host a book swap with neighbors or friends to get access to new titles, or look in the library for books that relate to your child’s unique interests.

3. Discuss what your child is reading

Mother and daughter read a book together to boost reading comprehension.

As a parent, you have a wonderful opportunity to hold low-pressure, friendly conversations with your child about what they’re reading — no pop quiz required.

Ask your child what their favorite book is, or what they like reading at home or at school. After they’re done reading, ask them questions about what happened in their book, or what they think will happen next, to build an organic love of reading.

4. Check out online reading programs

Online reading apps can help kids engage with books and reading in new, exciting ways! For a digital literary experience, check out:

Epic — A free online library of digital books you can browse and read with your child.
Headsprout — An adaptive online learning resource for students in kindergarten to fifth grade.
Audible — A library of audiobooks and podcasts for kids who prefer to listen rather than look at words.
Sora — An Overdrive-based app where you can download books and audiobooks from your library for free.
Prodigy English — A whole new way for kids to develop reading and language skills, with free educational content for 1st to 6th grade created by teachers.

5. Try game-based learning

If your child doesn’t want to sit still long enough to read a book, game-based learning can help them master important concepts and get the ants out of their pants.

Charades, telephone, Pictionary and Scattergories are all fun games that connect meaning with words, help boost your child’s background knowledge and make learning words fun.

Try some in your house to see which your child likes best.

And, if they're into educational apps, explore Prodigy English — a digital game-based learning platform! As students play, questions cover important skills like reading, rhyming, phonetics and spelling.

6. Ask their teacher

Your child’s teacher should be your first stop for any questions about your child’s reading comprehension or areas for improvement.

Whether it’s part of a parent-teacher conference or just a quick catch-up after school, they’ll be able to give you valuable advice about how to best help your child love reading. Use their advice to connect the books you read at home and the games you play with what your child is working on in class!

Reinforce with continual learning and encouragement

Reading comprehension doesn’t just happen all at once — it’s a lifelong process that students build on as they grow.

In each grade, encourage students to engage more deeply with what they’re reading and ask critical questions. As students build reading comprehension skills, they’ll have an opportunity to find joy and meaning in their reading.

Want more ways to build reading comprehension? Try Prodigy English !

In this all-new adventure, students can explore and create a world of their very own as they meet new characters, earn coins and build a home. Create a free teacher account today to get started.

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Scintillating Studies

Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading

Graham, S., and Hebert, M. A. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

“The evidence is clear: writing can be a vehicle for improving reading” (p. 6).

Ten years ago The National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges deemed writing the “neglected ‘R’” and called for a “writing revolution” that included doubling the amount of time students spend writing. In the years following, extensive reports such as Reading Next (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006) and Writing Next (Graham & Perin, 2007) supported the idea that writing is a powerful tool for improving reading, thinking, and learning. Now as much of the country implements the Common Core State Standards, there is a renewed push for more and better writing. As educators try to determine how to improve student learning and include more writing within the same time limits, it is important to revisit Steve Graham and Michael Hebert’s (2010) Writing to Read , which gives strong evidence that writing, an essential skill itself, also improves reading comprehension.

For decades researchers have emphasized the strong connection between reading and writing, both in theory and in practice. Multiple studies have demonstrated that writing can improve comprehension. What has been less clear is what particular writing practices research supports as being effective at improving students’ reading. To determine those practices, Graham and Hebert (2010) undertook an in-depth meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental studies that examined the effectiveness of writing practices on improving students’ reading in grades 1 -12. They acknowledge the limitations of excluding other forms of research and recognize the significant contributions of that research; at the same time, they share that completing this sort of meta-analysis allowed them to focus on studies where cause-and-effect could be inferred and effect sizes calculated. Their meta-analysis generated three recommendations:

Have students write about the texts they read. “Writing about a text proved to be better than just reading it, reading and rereading it, reading and studying it, reading and discussing it, and receiving reading instruction” (p. 14). Specific types of writing about reading that had statistically significant effect sizes included responding to a text through writing personal reactions or analyses/interpretations of the text, writing summaries of a text, taking notes on a text, and creating and/or answering questions about a text in writing. The benefits of these types of writing were stronger, particularly for lower-achieving students, when they were tied with explicit instruction on how to write.
Teach students the writing skills and processes that go into creating texts. Teaching students about writing process, text structures, paragraph or sentence construction, and other writing skills improves reading comprehension; teaching spelling and sentence construction skills improve fluency; and teaching spelling skills improves word reading skills.
Increase how much students write. An increase in how often students write improves students’ reading comprehension. Graham and Hebert recommend more writing across the curriculum, as well as at home to achieve more time spent writing.

What may be most important in all of Graham and Hebert’s findings is that infrequent writing and lack of explicit writing instruction minimize any sort of effect on reading from the writing practices they recommend. Their report also supports earlier calls for emphasizing writing in the classroom and across content areas. Writing is a critical skill, important in its own right; given the evidence that consistent writing time and instruction not only improves writing but also reading, gives us an even more compelling case for finding time in our school day for more writing.

Additional References

Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C. E. (2006). Reading next: A vision for action and research in middle and high school literacy -- A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Graham, S., & Perin, D. (2007). Writing next: Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools -- A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York . Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

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6 Techniques for Building Reading Skills—in Any Subject

Students need good reading skills not just in English but in all classes. Here are some ways you can help them develop those skills.

A young woman reads a heavily annotated book.

As avid lovers of literature, teachers often find themselves wanting to impart every bit of knowledge about a well-loved text to their students. And this is not just an ELA issue—other disciplines also often focus on the content of a text. However, teaching reading skills in English classes and across the disciplines is an almost guaranteed way to help students retain content. Unfortunately, the tendency to focus on the content is a real enemy to the ultimate goal of building reading skills.

Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, students are being shortchanged in their education. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information on a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate reading skills lessons into a curriculum.

Teach Close Reading Skills

Guide students in annotation by directing them to do more than highlight or underline. Encourage students to have a conversation with the text by jotting notes on the text while reading—this keeps students engaged and often increases comprehension. Annotations can include:

Defining new words
Asking questions
Coding recurring words and themes
Making personal connections to the text
Citing current events
Highlighting heading and subheadings
Summarizing paragraphs
Categorizing information
Numbering and ordering
Drawing pictures

The list of possibilities is endless—the point is to have students form their own process when approaching a text. But don’t be afraid to give students specific annotation guidelines such as “annotate the writer’s characterization techniques” or “find examples of . . .” to help them focus. Annotations also help students identify which strategies work best for them as they try to process and understand information. The clip “ Girls Read Comic ” from The Big Bang Theory is a great way to introduce the concept of reading closely and its importance.

Appeal to the Senses

While reading is the work of the mind, incorporating the senses provides extra reinforcement for students who are still growing their skills. Reading passages aloud and verbalizing questions you would mentally ask while reading can be a great benefit to students. Students often have no idea how to ask questions, what type of questions to ask, or the frequency of questions, so modeling this skill is invaluable. This can be further reinforced especially for visual learners by using a document camera or overhead projector to write questions, mark key words and phrases, and interact with a text. And as always, encourage students to read with a pen or pencil in hand.

Guide Students in Setting Reading Goals

While writing goals are used regularly in the classroom, students do not assess personal reading skills on a regular basis. Begin the year by having students write a reader’s biography to gain insight into their reading habits, struggles, and successes; this serves as a foundation for discussions on setting reading goals. After reading a novel, nonfiction text, short story, or poetry unit, help students evaluate their reading skills: Did you feel confident reading the text? Why or why not? What parts of the text gave you trouble? Could you have used a different strategy to make reading the text easier? Students should evaluate goals on a regular basis and create new goals based on their needs and growth.

Vary Text Length

When approaching a particularly difficult text, break it up and offer it in shorter segments. Students often become discouraged with lengthy texts that require intense concentration. Giving smaller segments allows the students to digest chunks in pieces, acquire academic vocabulary, and build confidence.

Offer Opportunities for Choice Reading

Simply put, the best way to improve reading is to read, and students are more likely to read when they have a choice in the reading. Newsela and CommonLit offer a variety of nonfiction articles for choice (and CommonLit includes fiction as well); both sites include articles with various grade levels and across multiple disciplines. Classroom libraries built from donations, garage sales, and thrift shops encourage students to take books for personal reading. Ask students about their interests and make recommendations. Reading for pleasure builds transferable skills for content reading and should be encouraged, including in class.

Assess Content and Skill

Students should be able to demonstrate their skills in assessment, whether it’s formal or informal, formative or summative. Recall and comprehension questions are a good way to check for basic understanding, but teachers should then move to the harder how and why questions. Choose activities that require students to dig deep into a text, such as:

Facilitate a socratic discussion.
Create a playlist for a character.
Write a formal essay.
Make a meme for a character.
Present a mini-TED talk on research inspired by a text.
Create a mind map, literary 3x3, or infographic.

Most teachers already incorporate skill building in their classes to some degree; however, taking time to discuss and actively engage students in the process will keep skill development at the forefront of learning. The result will be students who not only make gains in reading but also have an understanding of how to become better readers.

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

‘Writing Directly Benefits Students’ Reading Skills’

All of us obviously want to help our students become better writers. But are there ways we can “double-dip,” too—in other words, help them improve their writing AND also use writing instruction to improve reading skills?

We’ll explore that question today with Tony Zani, Mary Tedrow, Mary Beth Nicklaus, Colleen Cruz, and Pam Allyn. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Tony, Mary, and Mary Beth on my BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

Giving kids the ‘write stuff’ makes them better readers

Tony Zani is a literacy coach in the Salt Lake City school district. He has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in instructional leadership. Tony is a national-board-certified teacher with a specialization in early-childhood education:

Writing is often the overlooked content area. After the National Reading Panel left it out and No Child Left Behind focused on reading achievement, there seemed to be a decline in teaching writing. After the Common Core State Standards came out, there was an increase in writing instruction. But, if your state is like mine, writing is only tested in a few grades. So, guess what? Those are the grades when writing is taught like crazy. In other grades, it often becomes a nice thing “if there’s time.” There’s rarely time.

This mentality is prevalent because every level of the education system focuses on making sure students do well on end-of-year, high-stakes assessments. Jobs are at stake. Money from the government is at stake. Heaven forbid your school does so poorly that an outside group comes in to help you “turnaround.”

Never fear, though. Writing directly benefits students’ reading skills. For example, if you have students write about what they’ve read or learned (for nearly any content or age), you’ll dramatically improve reading comprehension. Students are often forced to reread and think more deeply about what they’ve read. When students have to consider a controversial question and use texts they’ve read to defend their point of view, reading comprehension is off the charts. In our school, we’ve emphasized writing about what we read. It took about two years for most teachers, and students, to really embrace the concept. It was about that time that our end-of-year reading scores had a huge jump. Our highly impacted Title I school made enormous growth just because students were better at thinking about what they read.

Writing also improves students’ reading fluency. When students have to stop and think about what spelling patterns to use when they write, they are making a deeper connection in their brains about sound and spelling patterns. This deeper connection makes it easier, and faster, for students to recall those same patterns when they read. Written language is literally a secret code that someone made up to represent spoken sounds. The more students think about and practice the code in written form, the better they will be at understanding the same code in writing. Again, in our high-needs school, we saw students’ scores on tests like DIBELS and our end-of-level test rise dramatically. Fluent readers more deeply understand that code.

Writing also improves reading comprehension as students get better at formatting their writing. When students write argumentative essays, they learn how authors often lay out their arguments and evidence. This, in turn, gives students a framework for reading others’ argumentative writing. Having a framework in your mind helps you fill in the blanks and improves comprehension. When students write narrative pieces, they develop an understanding of how authors typically lay out character development, setting, plot, problems, turning points, and resolutions. Again, students have a framework to build upon when they read others’ narrative texts. In a bit of irony, our school focused on writing informative and argumentative pieces—those are emphasized in the common core, right? Our students had very high scores when reading informational texts. However, students scored lower when reading literature. Reading literature was a strength for most other schools. Writing in all genres is important. Don’t lose that balance!

Writing is a critical communication skill. Universities and employers frequently complain that writing is an underdeveloped skill. It’s no wonder, when we have an education system that often relegates writing to the land of “I wish we had time” and “That’s not on the test.” What a tragedy. Teaching students to be effective writers is important by itself. However, writing also provides big gains in reading comprehension and reading fluency.

‘Reading is the inhale; writing is the exhale’

Mary K. Tedrow, an award-winning high school English teacher, now serves as the director of the Shenandoah Valley Writing Project. Her book, Write, Think, Learn: Tapping the Power of Daily Student Writing Across the Content Area is available through Routledge:

Writing and reading are intricately intertwined. One is the inverse of the other: Reading is the inhale; writing is the exhale. They depend on each other, and when we find time to practice both, the students are the winners.

In the earliest readers, writing is a natural way to ingest and experiment with a growing knowledge of letters and their function in symbolizing the sounds we speak. Encouraging students to write, even before they know all the rules, builds a deeper understanding of how reading works. In kindergarten, the inventive spelling students employ to compose early writings allows children to represent on the page what they are hearing in the world. Children more clearly understand the letter/sound relationship as they compose thoughts and stories in writing. Recent research has revealed that students who are given latitude to use inventive spelling become better readers (Oulette & Senechall, 2017).

But the interplay between writing and reading goes well beyond just learning to read. When students are asked to write for their own purposes, they intuitively understand the choices authors make as they create a work that moves a reader.

Teachers who have students writing authentically—that is, the way real writers write—can interrupt the process and teach craft lessons. Show students how to develop several good beginnings and ask them to choose the one which serves their purpose best. Show how to incorporate the senses in description, how to move a plot forward through dialogue, how to manipulate sentences for punch and clarity.

All of these writing skills are the inside/out version of analyzing writing by others. When we analyze the books, poetry, and essays we read, we are simply describing the choices an author made on their road to composing a piece. When students are heavily involved in creating those pieces themselves, they will more easily see what authors are doing and understand the messiness required in producing effective communication. Writing brings the author and his or her skill to life.

Students who write are better, more observant, and appreciative readers in general. And students who read are better, more competent writers. Be sure your students have the chance to breathe in and out throughout the day.

Ouellette, G., & Sénéchal, M. (2017). Invented spelling in kindergarten as a predictor of reading and spelling in Grade 1: A new pathway to literacy, or just the same road, less known? Developmental Psychology, 53 (1), 77-88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000179

‘Lure’ students into reading through working with their writing

Mary Beth Nicklaus is a secondary-level teacher and literacy specialist for the Wisconsin Rapids public schools in Wisconsin:

I have found it possible to lure secondary-level students into the reading world through working with their writing. I work with 6-9th grade struggling readers as a reading specialist and literacy coach. By the time they are referred to me, they have not been reading for years—which accounts for much of their struggle. When we teachers work through the power of written self-expression with and for these students, we can also tinker with content-specific academic vocabulary, text structure, and mechanics of writing. We can also prime and build basic reading and comprehension skills. Even researchers have found that use of reading-response writing, explicitly teaching writing process, and engaging students in wide writing practice enhances basic reading skills and comprehension in K-12 readers. Here are some strategies I have found to be successful working with secondary-level students based on the aforementioned three areas:

Create reading-response writing opportunities focusing on opinions and feelings of the reader. By the time they are in 6th grade, most students want to share information about interests and opinions. How can we connect that interest into reader response? To begin with, we don’t always have to work with published text. We can create our own texts in the classroom. We teachers can start the process by writing a letter to students sharing some general information and interests. The teacher then guides the students to write a letter back to them with similar information. This experience encourages students to begin sharing and expressing themselves in writing. Get into the habit of crafting student-writing response assignments for which we are asking about students’ feelings and opinions regarding classroom reading—even soliciting poetry writing if that genre works best for some students. Students may also find starting with a salutation hailing a specific audience helps them focus their thoughts in their writing. “Dear teacher/class/partner, I think that ____.” They can also focus on sharing their writing with a partner or small group.
Teach the writing process relative to classroom text. Teach students a few writing structures to clearly communicate thoughts and ideas. Teach the main structures of the text you use in your content—be it narrative or expository structures. Let’s say we want to teach students to compare and contrast within a classroom text on the running of restaurants. We might use a Venn Diagram graphic organizer to compare and contrast the information about restaurant operation with them on the smartboard. Allow the class to help fill in information. Then together, flesh out a comparison-contrast response with a question like, “Based on our reading today, what might be a more difficult restaurant to run, Culver’s or Buffalo Wild Wings?” Use a template to gather student input to flesh out a response. Teach students to support viewpoints with evidence from the text and show them a specific way you will always want them to use to cite evidence. Allow the class to help design or co-create a rubric for evaluating writing, which will help students internalize the elements of the specific writing. Steer the strategy to a similar text where you might use the same kind of structure and response.
Engage in wide practice of written response: Continuing both “big” and “little” writing in our classes, based on the structures and types of texts we teach, can increase reading comprehension. Working on mechanics of writing improves basic reading skills like fluency and word recognition. In addition, continue to practice reading, writing, and reflecting and sharing in whole-group, small-group, and partner contexts. Have students create “Why?” questions to inquire about text. Supply sentence stems to help students focus their text response with their writing such as, “I think ___________ did what he did because in the story_______.” Make it a habit of requiring written response in the form of exit response slips where students within a limit of 3-5 minutes, quickly write a response to an inquiry regarding what they learned through the reading. Wide practice of writing helps students’ classroom reading become second nature, and it helps prune their focus on text.

I know the strategies I have elaborated upon work, because my students made enormous, lasting gains in their reading through focusing on writing. Also, the gains secondary-level students can make through focusing on feelings and opinions in their reading-response writing foster livelier conversations during classroom discussion. Students’ overall gains even show students that content texts across the curriculum can pique their interests outside of the classroom. It’s a win-win all around!

Having students annotate their writing with the Strategies they use

Colleen Cruz is the author of several titles for teachers, including The Unstoppable Writing Teacher , as well as the author of the young-adult novel, Border Crossing , a Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award Finalist. She was a classroom teacher in general education and inclusive settings before joining the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, where as the director of innovation, she shares her passion for accessibility, 21st-century learning, and social justice. Most recently, Colleen authored Writers Read Better: Nonfiction (July 2018) and Writers Read Better: Narrative published by Corwin:

As an educator who works with teachers and students in grades 2 through 8, I find that I often look at the practices of primary-grade teachers and wish we upper-grade folks borrowed more heavily from them. Whether it be a focus on individual development, an emphasis on play, or just an overarching focus on the whole child, there are pedagogical treasures we need to bring more to our big-kid classrooms. At present, the most pressing for me is the desire to use writing to support reading instruction more often.

Every kindergarten and 1st grade teacher I know asks students to write as soon as they enter the classroom. This is long before students know the entire alphabet or how to read any words. In fact, most of us who have had little ones at home can attest to how often kids pick up a marker or crayon and write their names, strings of letters, or familiar words. Our youngest learners often produce words before they consume them. And when they do that, they are setting themselves up for success as readers because they learn early on, if they can write their name they can read it. If they can write any word, they can read it.

Also, many of us grew up as educators with the knowledge that reading supports writing. I first learned how this conventional wisdom applies to children’s writing from Katie Ray and her seminal book Wondrous Words. So, it should not be all that revolutionary to discover that those early-writing and -reading connections still apply when students move into more complex reading.

Yes, they might have moved past simple decoding and literal comprehension work. But the role of writing and reading reciprocity still applies. For every comprehension move a reader makes, there is an author on the other side of the desk. If a young reader is also a writer, they will be well-positioned to see the mirror moves they have made as a writer in the texts they are reading by other authors. Studies have shown this, of course (Graves, Calkins, Chew, Graham & Hebert to name a few). But in my work with young readers and writers I have seen time and again that if something is challenging to a reader, one of the most accessible paths to overcoming that challenge is through writing. It’s a transferable understanding that can last a lifetime: Show students that every reading skill has a reciprocal writing skill, and if they have written something like it, they are able to read it well, too.

One of my favorite ways to do this is to ask students to annotate their writing with the strategies they tried as writers and the reasons why. For example, “I used show-don’t-tell in this paragraph to help make a picture in my reader’s mind.” I then ask them to read a book of their choice with their own writing nearby. When they come to a spot in the text they find challenging, they can look back to their own writing to see if they made a similar move and why. A few common writing/reading reciprocal moves I teach students include:

Show-not-tell in writing helps readers to infer in reading.
Plotting in writing helps readers to make predictions in reading.
Developing objects as symbols in writing helps readers interpret symbols in reading.
Defining a word in writing helps readers to understand the meaning of an unknown word.

There are, of course, countless more.

We know the power of modeling. And I believe for many years, rightly so, we have taught students how to mine the power of the published word for ideas for their own writing. For many of us, it’s time to try to teach the power of modeling by asking students to look at their own writing as their mentor for their reading lives. I am hard-pressed to think of more empowering reading work.

Writing ‘is a powerful lever for helping our students learn to read profoundly’

Pam Allyn, senior vice president, innovation & development, Scholastic Education, is a leading literacy expert, author, and motivational speaker. In 2007, she founded LitWorld, a global literacy organization serving children across the United States and in more than 60 countries, pioneering initiatives including the summer reading program LitCamp and World Read Aloud Day:

Writing and reading are not just two sides of the same coin; they are profoundly related and entwined. I have often said that reading is like breathing in, and writing is like breathing out—the child is taking new breaths in this new world, feeling her power and her potential.

Surrounding our children in the sounds of language from literary and informational text is crucial to their understanding of language. The child who is read aloud to multiple times per day, week, month, and year is already realizing the sound and feel of language. Then, too, the child who is given the opportunity to put her first marks on the page is already beginning to make meaning in the world. When reading a book, she sees it as something constructed from a world she already knows because her scribbles connect to those of others and give her the powerful idea that she has a voice.

Writing early and constantly, in and out of school, is a powerful lever for helping our students learn to read profoundly. Here are five ways writing supports reading and vice versa:

1. Building a deep sense of the beauty of grammar, sound, and vocabulary

The student who writes becomes alert to the structure of sentences, the rhythm of multiple words together, and words that surprise. Because our students are using the tools of language to build their own stories, they are awake to the qualities of texts. When students share works by authors such as Jacqueline Woodson or Naomi Nye, they’re astounded and try to emulate them in their own writing.

2. Understanding the purpose of and use of genres

Students who write quickly learn the necessity of genre. My 1st graders were writing informational texts and choosing their own topics. One wrote about nursing homes because that’s where her grandpa was. Later, I saw her scouring a book with a glossary in it. She explained, “I want to add a glossary to my story. My readers might need to know some of the big words I use to describe where my grandpa lives.” Genre is already embedded within her at the age of 6.

3. Recognizing the power of writing to connect us

Students who write understand that by telling their stories, they’re making their thoughts permanent, which leads to a hearty respect for the text, the authors who write them, and the uses we make of them. When our student writers are finishing works to put into the classroom library, they have an opportunity to see themselves side by side with published works, which feels celebratory. Writing, theirs and others, inspires and connects them.

4. Becoming aware of the ways writing can change someone’s mind or change the world

Even the smallest writer has big ideas. My 2nd grade class once wrote letters to the entire neighborhood inviting them to come see our play. People young and old came, and students saw how they could change their communities with the power of their own words. So, when they read, they consider all the ways writers can change people.

5. Knowing and deepening one’s own writing and the voice of an author

The student who writes is building confidence, courage, and a sense of self. She is learning how to evoke emotion, keep someone in suspense, and persuade while developing her own voice, which will serve her in the future whether she’s writing a narrative or an email. When she turns to her reading, she is now more aware of the author’s voice and knows the risks the author takes. She is one herself.

Thanks to Tony, Mary, Mary Beth, Colleen, and Pam for their contributions.

(This is the first post in a two-part series)

The new question-of-the-week is:

In what ways can writing support reading instruction?

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

If you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

This Year’s Most Popular Q&A Posts
Race & Gender Challenges
Classroom-Management Advice
Best Ways to Begin the School Year
Best Ways to End the School Year
Implementing the Common Core
Student Motivation & Social-Emotional Learning
Teaching Social Studies
Cooperative & Collaborative Learning
Using Tech in the Classroom
Parent Engagement in Schools
Teaching English-Language Learners
Reading Instruction
Writing Instruction
Education Policy Issues
Differentiating Instruction
Math Instruction
Science Instruction
Advice for New Teachers
Author Interviews
Entering the Teaching Profession
The Inclusive Classroom
Learning & the Brain
Administrator Leadership
Teacher Leadership
Relationships in Schools
Professional Development
Instructional Strategies
Best of Classroom Q&A
Professional Collaboration
Classroom Organization
Mistakes in Education
Project-Based Learning

I am also creating a Twitter list including all contributors to this column .

Look for Part Two in a few days.

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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14 Powerful Reading Comprehension Strategies To Teach Students

When students understand what they read, reading is meaningful and fun.

examples of graphic organizers for reading comprehension strategies

Comprehension is the goal of reading. If students don’t understand what they read, well, reading is a meaningless activity. The good news: Reading comprehension can be taught, practiced, and mastered. As students become readers, you can teach strategies that students can learn and add to their toolbox.

What is reading comprehension?

Think about reading comprehension as a combination of skills. Students need to get the words off the page ( fluency , word reading) and understand the language they are reading (language structure, knowledge, vocabulary, and reasoning). If a student does not have strong language comprehension skills in particular, they won’t understand what they read, even if their fluency and word reading is strong. Reading comprehension strategies focus on building students’ language comprehension and teach them how to tackle text when they don’t understand.

A model showing Scarborough's Reading Rope, a way to understand the science of reading

Scarborough’s Reading Rope is a way to visualize the skills that go into reading. The top five skills ( background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) become more strategic over time as students learn how to apply strategies to different kinds of text. The bottom three skills (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition) become more automatic as students master each skill.

Learn more: What Is Reading Comprehension?

Reading Comprehension Strategies

Here are our favorite reading comprehension strategies to help students develop and strengthen their reading comprehension.

1. Establish a purpose for reading

Reading comprehension starts before students open a book. Teach students to set a purpose for reading, weather that’s to enjoy a story or to answer a specific question. Having a purpose helps students focus on the most important information and sift out less important details.

2. Graphic organizers

graphic organizer examples: compare contrast and main idea and details for reading comprehension strategies

Graphic organizers are a tried-and-true strategy. Students can use an organizer that aligns with the text they are reading. So, if they are reading a nonfiction article about an event, they may use a sequencing graphic organizer. If they are reading a section of a textbook, they may use a main idea and detail graphic organizer. The key is to teach students the types of graphic organizers that exist, the type of text each is used for, and how to use each one during reading.

Try it: Free Printable Reading Comprehension Graphic Organizers

3. Activate background knowledge

The more knowledge students have about a topic, the more they will understand. Prior knowledge includes information about a topic (sharks, weather) and information about how text works (anticipating that the first chapter of a novel will include information about the main character, setting, and problem). It’s not about teaching students all the facts, but teaching them how to reflect on what they know before they read. If they know a lot, they can dive in. If they don’t know much, they may want to preview the text for key words and images to build some background knowledge.

Learn more: What Is Background Knowledge?

4. Predict and infer

graphic organizer with space to write information from the text, what the reader thinks, and an inference or prediction, reading comprehension strategy

Making predictions or inferences involves combining multiple pieces of information to either predict or think about what will happen next, or to infer meaning that’s not stated in the text. Teach students to make predictions with a graphic organizer that prompts them to combine information from the text with their own ideas and thinking to predict or infer.

Try it: Free Printables: Predictions and Inferences

5. Ask and answer questions

Questioning is another proven reading comprehension strategy. When we can ask and answer questions as we read, it means we’re thinking about what we read. Teach students how to question by modeling with a think-aloud. Then, have students jot questions on sticky notes as they read and return to their questions to answer them as they read to build comprehension.

Learn more: Improving Reading Comprehension With Think-Alouds

6. Summarizing

summarizing graphic organizer with the words somebody wanted but so then for reading comprehension strategies

When students can summarize text, they’ve grasped the main points and are able to retell what they learned. One great way to summarize is a book talk , where students summarize a book and try to convince others to read it (or not).

Another way to support summarizing for fiction text is with a graphic organizer that helps them retell: Somebody … wanted … but … so … then. For nonfiction, use a main idea and details graphic organizer.

Try it: Free Summarizing Graphic Organizers

7. Visualization

When authors write, they create images and scenes. Even in nonfiction, authors create scenes that we can imagine. Being able to visualize makes reading more interesting (like watching a movie in your head). Teach students to visualize by starting small. Read sentences and have them draw what they see. Then, expand this strategy as you engage students in visualizing scenes.

8. Metacognition

Metacognition means understanding our own thought processes. In reading, this means knowing if we understand what we’re reading, and how to stop and review if we aren’t understanding. Teach students to notice what they’re thinking when they read. Are they asking questions? What do they wonder? Which parts make them laugh? Are there any big surprises in what they read?

Learn more: What Is Metacognition?

9. Monitoring comprehension

Monitoring comprehension is the process readers use to determine if they understand what they are reading. Have students stop at the end of a paragraph and page and think What did I read? If they can summarize what they read, they go on. If they cannot, they use a fix-up strategy, like rereading the section or looking up vocabulary words.

10. Making connections

When students make connections, they’re building knowledge. Model and teach three main types of connections:

Text to self: How does the text connect with your life or experiences?
Text to text: How does this part of the text connect to what you read in this text or what you have read in other texts?
Text to world: How does what you’re reading connect with what you know?

Learn more: Using hexagonal thinking

11. Determining importance

Sometimes students get overwhelmed by the amount of information they’re reading. Teach them to calculate the importance of details they read. Students highlight or record the details they read, and then put each through a “funnel” where they think about whether or not it is actually important. Only the most important details make it through the funnel.

12. Recognizing story structure

Stories have a predictable structure that students can use to comprehend them. Knowing that stories start by explaining the character, setting, and problem can help students anticipate looking for this important information as they get into a story. And knowing that the story will hit a climax before the problem resolves also helps students anticipate the end of the story. Use story map graphic organizers to help improve students’ understanding of narrative by focusing on important information while they’re reading.

Try it: Free Story Map Printable Worksheets

13. Retelling

Retelling is a strategy that involves telling the most important information. Have students do a five-finger retell. They hold their hand up and point to each finger as they explain the characters, setting, events one, two, and three, and the conclusion. Students point to their palm and share an opinion of the story or how the story made them feel. Using this prompt reminds students to include the main aspects of a story.

14. Build vocabulary

vocabulary graphic organizer with space to write a sentence using a vocabulary word

The more words a student knows, the more words they can learn, and the deeper they understand what they read. And the more times a student engages with a word, the more likely they are to actually remember and use the word. Teach words using visuals and activities, like creating sentences with vocabulary. And teach students how to engage with words in text. For example, practice reading “around” a word to define it—when students read on their own, they can use the same strategy when they’re stuck on a word.

Try it: Free Printable Vocabulary Worksheet Bundle

Reading about reading? Check out What Is the Science of Reading?

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To read is to understand. Use these reading comprehension strategies to teach students to engage with text from Once Upon a Time to The End.

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How to Make Your Essay Better: 7 Tips for Stronger Essays

By Krystal N. Craiker

Essay writing doesn’t have to be intimidating. With a few tips, you can improve your writing skills for any type of academic essay.

How to Write Better Essays

7 tips on how to make your essay better, how to become a better essay writer.

The best way to sum up how to write better essays is, “Make sure you’re answering the question.”

This sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many students struggle with this.

From not understanding the prompt to poor research skills to off-topic body paragraphs, it’s easy for an essay to derail.

We’ve got seven tips for writing better essays that will help you avoid common mistakes and craft the best essays possible.

Here are our top tips for improving your essay writing skills.

Understand the Prompt or Research Question

The first step in your writing process is to fully understand the essay topic. If your professor gave you a prompt for your academic essay, spend some time analyzing it.

First, take note of whether you’re writing an expository or persuasive essay. The tone, structure, and word choice will differ between essay types.

Pay close attention to the wording of the prompt.

If your teacher wants you to “analyze” the effects of new technology in World War I, but you turn in a descriptive overview of the technology, you are not answering the question.

If they have given you a topic but no prompt, you’ll need to create a guiding question for your research.

Be specific in what you are trying to research, or you’ll end up overwhelmed with a topic that is too big in scope.

“Symbolism in modern literature” is too broad for a term paper, but “How does F. Scott Fitzgerald use symbolism in The Great Gatsby ?” is an achievable topic.

Take Excellent Notes

Once you understand exactly what your essay is about, you can begin the research phase. Create a strong note-taking system.

Write down any idea or quote you might want to use. Cite every note properly to save time on your citations and to avoid accidental plagiarism.

Once you have gathered your research, organize your notes into categories. This will help you plan the structure of your essay.

You’ll likely find that some of your research doesn’t fit into your essay once you start writing. That’s okay—it’s better to have too much information to support your argument than too little.

Write a Strong Thesis Statement

Possibly the most important step in essay writing is to craft a strong thesis statement. A thesis statement is a brief—usually single-sentence—explanation of what your essay is about.

The thesis statement guides the entire essay: every point you make should support your thesis.

A strong thesis is specific and long enough to address the major points of your essay.

In a persuasive or argumentative essay, your thesis should clearly establish the argument you are making.

Make an Outline

Once you have all your research, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. How do you turn the information into a cohesive essay?

Rather than writing an essay with no roadmap, an outline will keep you on track. An outline helps you organize your thoughts, plan your arguments, and sort your research.

A good outline saves you time, too! You can compile the relevant evidence in your notes before writing, so you don’t have to find that specific quote in the middle of essay writing.

An outline will also stop you from reading your finished essay and realizing you went completely off track.

With an outline, you can avoid finding paragraphs that don’t support your thesis right before you submit the essay.

Craft a Great Introduction

An academic essay needs a strong introductory paragraph.

The introduction is the first impression of your essay. It prepares the reader for what’s coming and gets them excited to read your paper.

A good introduction has three things:

A hook (e.g. insightful statement, quote, interesting fact)
Brief background information about the topic
A thesis statement

Using this formula will help you write a strong introduction for your essay.

Have Original Ideas and Interpretations

The best academic writing advice a professor ever gave me was, “You’ve shown me what other people have said about the topic. I want to know what you think about the topic.”

Even a fact-heavy or data-heavy essay needs original ideas and interpretations. For every piece of information you cite, whether you quote or paraphrase it , offer original commentary.

Focus on insights, new interpretations, or even questions that you have. These are all ways to provide original ideas in your essay.

Proofread for Readability

A good essay is a proofread essay.

Readability, or how easy something is to read, has many factors. Spelling and grammar are important, but so is sentence structure, word choice , and other stylistic features.

Academic essays should be readable without being too simple. In general, aim for a readability score that is close to your grade level in school.

There are several ways to check readability scores, including using ProWritingAid’s Readability Report.

The quickest way to increase readability is to fix grammar and spelling mistakes . You can also raise the readability score by using more complex and compound-complex sentences.

ProWritingAid can offer suggestions on how to improve your essay and take it to the next level.

Our free essay checker will check for spelling and grammar errors, plus several other types of writing mistakes.

The essay checker will offer you suggestions on sentence length and passive voice.

It will help you trim the excess words that bog down your writing by analyzing your sticky sentences and overused words.

The essay checker is here to help you turn in an error-free essay.

Want to improve your essay writing skills?

Use prowritingaid.

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Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Krystal N. Craiker

Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.

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Interrogating Texts

Reading Strategies

15th century Altarpiece fragment, Mary Magdalene reading. National Gallery (Great Britain). Available through ArtSTOR

Rogier van der Weyden, 1399 -1464. Altarpiece fragment, Mary Magdalene reading. National Gallery (Great Britain). Available through A rt STOR

Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. St. Ivo reading, ca.1450. National Gallery (Great Britain). Available through ArtSTOR

max beckmann reclining woman reading with irises 1923

Max Beckmann (1884-1950). Reclining Woman Reading, with Irises (192 3). Oil on canvas. Private collection. Image available in HOLLIS

daumier reader man with book with red-edged pages

H onore Daumier (1808-1879). Reader (1863). Oil on wood. University of California, San Diego. Image available in ARTStor

young man reading book 16th century painting aga khan museum

Young Man Reading a Book (c.1570-1574). Attributed to Mirza 'Ali (c.1510-1576). Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Image available in HOLLIS

Ms. Richardson 5, fol. 66v Book of Hours, England, ca. 1420. Houghton Library. Image linked from HOLLIS

Pencil drawing of reader in Farnsworth Room] / E. E. Johnson, March 20, 1917

Pencil drawing of reader in Farnsworth Room [originally in Widener Library] / E. E. Johnson, March 20, 1917 [Farnsworth Room Scrapbooks, v.1]. image available in HOLLIS

Thinking-Intensive Reading

Critical reading--active engagement and interaction with texts--is essential to your academic success at Harvard, and to your intellectual growth. Research has shown that students who read deliberately retain more information and retain it longer.

Your college reading assignments will probably be more substantial and more sophisticated than those you are used to from high school. The amount of reading will almost certainly be greater. College students rarely have the luxury of successive re-readings of material, however, given the pace of life in and out of the classroom.

So how should you approach reading in this new environment?

While the strategies described below are (for the sake of clarity) listed sequentially, you typically do most of them simultaneously. If you're used to doing little more than moving your eyes across the page, they may feel awkward at first, and you may have to deploy them consciously. But

But as they become habits, you'll notice the differences -- both in what you “see” in a course reading, and in the confidence with which you approach your texts.

Look “around” the text before you start reading.

Previewing enables you to develop a set of expectations about the scope and aim of the text. These very preliminary impressions offer you a way to focus your reading.

You’ve probably engaged in one version of previewing in the past, when you’ve tried to determine how long an assigned reading is (and how much time and energy, as a result, it will demand from you). But you can learn a great deal more about the organization and purpose of a text by taking note of features other than its length. For instance:

What does the presence of headnotes , an abstrac t, or other prefatory materia l tell you?
Is the author known to you already? If so, how does their reputation or credentials (like an institutional affiliation) influence your perception of what you are about to read?

If an author is unfamiliar or unknown in an essay collection, does an editor introduce them (by supplying brief biographical information, an assessment of the author’s work, concerns, and importance)?

Texts demand different things of you as you read, so whenever you can, register the type of information you’re presented with.

How does the disposition or layout of a text prepare you for reading? Is the material broken into parts--subtopics, sections, or the like? Are there long and unbroken blocks of text or smaller paragraphs or “chunks” and what does this suggest? How might the identified parts of a text guide you toward understanding the line of inquiry or the arc of the argument that's being made?
Does the text seem to be arranged according to certain conventions of discourse ? Newspaper articles, for instance, have characteristics that you will recognize, including "easy" language. Textbooks and scholarly essays are organized quite differently.

2. Annotate

Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text. .

It's also a way to have an ongoing conversation with yourself as you move through the text and to record what that encounter was like for you. Here's how to make your reading thinking-intensive from start to finish:

Throw away your highlighter : Highlighting can seem like an active reading strategy, but it can actually distract from the business of learning and dilute your comprehension. Those bright yellow lines you put on a printed page one day can seem strangely cryptic the next, unless you have a method for remembering why they were important to you at another moment in time. Pen or pencil will allow you to do more to a text you have to wrestle with.
Mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases : the ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem important to you, reminders of how issues in a text may connect with class discussion or course themes. This kind of interaction keeps you conscious of the reasons you are reading as well as the purposes your instructor has in mind. Later in the term, when you are reviewing for a test or project, your marginalia will be useful memory triggers.
Develop your own symbol system : asterisk (*) a key idea, for example, or use an exclamation point (!) for the surprising, absurd, bizarre. Your personalized set of hieroglyphs allow you to capture the important -- and often fleeting -- insights that occur to you as you're reading. Like notes in your margins, they'll prove indispensable when you return to a text in search of that perfect passage to use in a paper, or when you are preparing for a big exam.
Get in the habit of hearing yourself ask questions: “What does this mean?” “Why is the writer drawing that conclusion?” “Why am I being asked to read this text?” etc.

Write the questions down (in your margins, at the beginning or end of the reading, in a notebook, or elsewhere. They are reminders of the unfinished business you still have with a text: something to ask during class discussion, or to come to terms with on your own, once you’ve had a chance to digest the material further or have done other course reading.

3. Outline, Summarize, and Analyze

The best way to determine that you’ve really gotten the point is to be able to state it in your own words. take the information apart, look at its parts, and then, put it back together again in language that is meaningful to you. three ways to proceed: .

Outlining the argument of a text is a version of annotating, and can be done quite informally in the margins of the text, unless you prefer the more formal Roman numeral model you may have learned in high school. Outlining enables you to see the skeleton of an argument: the thesis, the first point and evidence (and so on), through the conclusion. With weighty or difficult readings, that skeleton may not be obvious until you go looking for it.

Summarizing accomplishes something similar, but in sentence and paragraph form, and with the connections between ideas made explicit.

Analyzing adds an evaluative component to the summarizing process—it requires you not just to restate main ideas, but also to test the logic, credibility, and emotional impact of an argument. In analyzing a text, you reflect upon and decide how effectively (or poorly) its argument has been made. Questions to ask:

What is the writer asserting?
What am I being asked to believe or accept? Facts? Opinions? Some mixture?
What reasons or evidence does the author supply to convince me? Where is the strongest or most effective evidence the author offers -- and why is it compelling?
Is there any place in the text where the reasoning breaks down? Are there things that do not make sense, conclusions that are drawn prematurely, moments where the writer undermines their purposes?

4. Look for repetitions and patterns

The way language is chosen, used, and positioned in a text can be an important indication of what an author considers crucial and what they expect you to glean from their argument. .

Language choices can also alert you to ideological positions, hidden agendas or biases. Be watching for:

Recurring images
Repeated words, phrases, types of examples, or illustrations
Consistent ways of characterizing people, events, or issues

5. Contextualize

Once you’ve finished reading actively and annotating it, consider the text from the multiple perspectives..

When you contextualize, you essentially "re-view" a text you've encountered, acknowledging how it is framed by its historical, cultural, material, or intellectual circumstances. Do these factors change, complicate, explain, deepen or otherwise influence how you view a piece?

Also view the reading through the lens of your own experience. Your understanding of the words on the page and their significance is always shaped by what you have come to know and value from living in a particular time and place.

6. Compare and Contrast

Set course readings against each other to determine their relationships (hidden or explicit)..

At what point in the term does this reading come? Why that point, do you imagine?
How does it contribute to the main concepts and themes of the course?
How does it compare (or contrast) to the ideas presented by texts that come before it? Does it continue a trend, shift direction, or expand the focus of previous readings?
How has your thinking been altered by this reading, or how has it affected your response to the issues and themes of the course?

Susan Gilroy , Librarian for Undergraduate Writing Programs, Lamont Library

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Interrogating texts [2 page printable]

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Why Reading is Essential for Improving Essay Writing Skills

why reading is essential for improving essay writing skills? There are several ways we can draw a connection between reading and writing skills where some ways both skills benefit each other.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

When we think about improving students’ writing skills we tend to think of spelling, grammar, phonemic awareness and phonics. Recently, studies have shown that working with students to improve their reading skills can have an impact on their essay writing.

Because most students don’t like to read, the vast majority of them find writing essays to be even more of a daunting task. According to BetterWrititngServices.com , essay writing services are extremely popular among college students, and the number of websites that sell academic papers to students grows rapidly. For this reason, it is important to help students improve their writing skills.

In this article, we will cover why reading is essential for improving essay writing skills. There are several ways we can draw a connection between reading and writing skills where some ways both skills benefit each other.

Mechanics of writing

We often teach reading and writing as two separate subjects, but students cannot complete a writing task if they cannot read and understand the instructions. These two skills are intertwined and both equally important to students’ success.

Reading serves not only to expose the student to different styles of writing but also supports them in their emerging skills.

The most well-known benefit reading has on writing skills is the increased exposure to different words. The more students read, the more it exposes them to alternative ways to use words they are both familiar and not familiar with.

The more students read, the bigger chance that they will learn new ways to structure their sentences and express their ideas. Reading allows them to learn new patterns they can use in their own writing.

The more well-read the writer is, the better grasp they have on understanding poor writing versus quality writing. This will allow students to make this identification more clear in their own written work.

Power of words

Essays are a tool used to get an idea across, make a point, prove something, or tell a story. The more students read, the more access they have to literature that seeks to make the same things happen.

It gives more weight to the words themselves and by extension more weight to what the students write.

Reading is also a proven way to support the development of imagination. While reading, we tend to picture the events in our mind’s eyes based on what we are reading. This has been shown to support your ability to understand situations and the solutions from the text.

Developing their voice

Without reading a variety of different authors and texts, it is hard for students to understand the idea of the voice of the author. The more students are exposed to different authors, the more courage and sense of self they develop for their own writing.

The more we expose students to different writing styles (classics, modern-day fiction and nonfiction), the more we support them in crafting their own voice for essay writing.

The development of a unique voice is an important skill needed to write essays, and it will aid in setting them apart from their peers.

Keeping up with the times

Language is something that is ever-changing, even in the world of essays. The words and phrases used by a student can change from year to year. Reading is essential for students who want to stay informed about modern language and style changes.

APA and MLA are always evolving in order for students to understand these changes. They need to see how they are implemented in various forms of writing.

Outside of the evaluation of different citation reading keeps students involved in learning the ways modern writing is changing.

Entwining reading and writing in the classroom

For those in education looking to improve their students’ essay writing skills, there are a few ways reading and writing can be taught together for the most benefit to the student.

Note-taking is the easiest way to aid students in their reading and writing skills. Having your students take notes on what they have read not only increases their deep reading skills, but benefits their writing as well.

Students do not just write one form of essay, they write personal essays, persuasive essays, they compare and contrast, so why are they only reading one thing? In order for students to understand the different tones and syntax required for these different forms of essays, they need to read them.

Exposing your students to different forms of literature broadens their ideas on what their next essay could be.

Genre Study

By selecting one genre for students to narrow their field of study it allowed them to learn the specific genre before they experiment with writing within that genre.

Letting students take the lead fosters their interest and independence in their language skills.

For teachers who find themselves struggling with ways to improve their student’s essay writing this may be the perfect solution. We know that we are more likely to complete certain tasks when we are motivated.

Thus it would make sense that if we allow students to pick the genre they both read and write about, they will be more motivated as well. Allow students to pick their own reading materials, then craft the writing work around their chosen piece.

In conclusion

The ways of teaching reading and writing separately are changing as more of us in education understand that reading is vital to essay writing skills.

As a basic level skill, students need to understand the written instruction before they can write the essay. In addition, the more well read students are the more vocabulary and grammar they are absorbing that is then transferred to their own writing.

The more students reading is spread out of topics and genres the deeper understanding they develop on the topics they are then to write essays about.

The absorption of knowledge that happens through the process of reading is integral to students improving their essay writing skills.

From Page to Screen: Using Film Adaptations to Rekindle Reading Interest

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13 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills

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Written by Scribendi

Anyone can learn to produce an academic essay if they begin with a few basic essay-writing rules.

An academic essay must be based upon a solid but debatable thesis, supported by relevant and credible evidence, and closed with a succinct and thorough conclusion.

By adhering to the best way to write an essay, you can create valuable, persuasive papers even when you're under a time crunch!

What Makes a Good Essay?

As previously noted, the foundation of any good academic essay is its thesis statement.

Do not confuse your thesis with your opening sentence. There are many good ways to start an essay , but few essays immediately present their main ideas.

After you draft your thesis, you can begin to develop your essay around it. This development will include the main supporting points of your essay, which will scaffold its main body.

Essays also typically include a relevant and compelling introduction and conclusion.

Learn How to Write a Great Thesis Statement .

Understanding How to Write a Good Essay

When writing an academic essay, you must take a number of qualities and characteristics into careful consideration. Focus, development, unity, coherence, and correctness all play critical roles when it comes to distinguishing an exceptional essay from one that is less than perfect.

The following essay-writing tips can help writers organize, format, and support their essays in ways that fit their intended purpose and optimize their overall persuasiveness. Here are 13 essay tips for developing and writing your next academic paper.

1. Know What You Are Going to Write About Before You Start Writing

While untrained writers might just sit down and start typing, educated and experienced writers know that there are many steps to writing an essay.

In short, you should know what you want to say before you type a single word. The easiest way to narrow down a thesis and create a proper argument is to make a basic outline before you begin composing your essay.

Your outline should consist of rough notes that sketch out your introduction (including your thesis), the body of your essay (which should include separate paragraphs that present your main supporting points with plenty of evidence and examples), and your conclusion (which ties everything together and connects the argument back to your thesis).

2. Acquire a Solid Understanding of Basic Grammar, Punctuation, and Style

Before getting into more refined essay-writing techniques, you must have a solid grasp of grammar, punctuation, and style. Without these writing fundamentals, it will be difficult to communicate your ideas effectively and ensure that they are taken seriously.

Grammar basics include subject and verb agreement, correct article and pronoun use, and well-formed sentence structures. Make sure you know the proper uses for the most common forms of punctuation. Be mindful of your comma usage and know when a period is needed.

Finally, voice is tremendously important in academic essay writing. Employ language that is as concise as possible. Avoid transition words that don't add anything to the sentence and unnecessary wordiness that detracts from your argument.

Furthermore, use the active voice instead of the passive whenever possible (e.g., "this study found" instead of "it was found by this study"). This will make your essay's tone clear and direct.

3. Use the Right Vocabulary and Know What the Words You Are Using Actually Mean

How you use language is important, especially in academic essay writing. When writing an academic essay, remember that you are persuading others that you are an expert who argues intelligently about your topic.

Using big words just to sound smart often results in the opposite effect—it is easy to detect when someone is overcompensating in their writing.

If you aren't sure of the exact meaning of a word, you risk using it incorrectly. There's no shame in checking, and it might save you from an embarrassing word misuse later!

Using obscure language can also detract from the clarity of your argument—you should consider this before pulling out a thesaurus to change a perfectly appropriate word to something completely different.

4. Understand the Argument and Critically Analyze the Evidence

While writing a good essay, your main argument should always be at the front of your mind. While it's tempting to go off on a tangent about an interesting side note, doing so makes your writing less concise.

Always question the evidence you include in your essay; ask yourself, "Does this directly support my thesis?" If the answer is "no," then that evidence should probably be excluded.

When you are evaluating evidence, be critical and thorough. You want to use the strongest research to back up your thesis. It is not enough to simply present evidence in support of an argument. A good writer must also explain why the evidence is relevant and supportive.

Everything you include should clearly connect to your topic and argument.

5. Know How to Write a Conclusion That Supports Your Research

One of the most overlooked steps to writing an essay is the conclusion. Your conclusion ties all your research together and proves your thesis. It should not be a restatement of your introduction or a copy-and-paste of your thesis.

A strong conclusion briefly outlines the key evidence discussed in the body of an essay and directly ties it to the thesis to show how the evidence proves or disproves the main argument of your research.

Countless great essays have been written only to be derailed by vague, weakly worded conclusions. Don't let your next essay become one of those.

6. Build a Solid Thesis to Support Your Arguments

A thesis is the main pillar of an essay. By selecting a specific thesis, you'll be able to develop arguments to support your central opinion. Consider writing about a unique experience or your own particular view of a topic .

Your thesis should be clear and logical, but it should also be debatable. Otherwise, it might be difficult to support it with compelling arguments.

7. Develop an Interesting Opening Paragraph to Hook In Readers from the Get-Go

No matter how you begin your essay, you must strive to capture the reader's interest immediately. If your opening paragraph doesn't catch the eye and engage the brain, any attempt at persuasion may end before the essay even starts.

The beginning of your essay is crucial for setting the stage for your thesis.

8. Always Remember to Edit and Proofread Your Essay

Any decent writer will tell you that writing is really rewriting. A good academic essay will inevitably go through multiple drafts as it slowly takes shape. When you arrive at a final draft, you must make sure that it is as close to perfect as possible.

This means subjecting your essay to close and comprehensive editing and proofreading processes. In other words, you must read your paper as many times as necessary to eliminate all grammar/punctuation mistakes and typos.

It is helpful to have a third party review your work. Consider consulting a peer or professional editing service. Keep in mind that professional editors are able to help you identify underdeveloped arguments and unnecessarily wordy language, and provide other feedback.

Get Critical Feedback on Your Writing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, 9. when developing your essay's main body, build strong and relevant arguments.

Every sentence in the main body of your paper should explain and support your thesis. When deciding how much evidence to include in an academic essay, a good guideline is to include at least three main supporting arguments.

Those main supporting arguments, in turn, require support in the form of relevant facts, figures, examples, analogies, and observations.

You will need to engage in appropriate research to accomplish this. To organize your research efforts, you may want to develop a list of good research questions .

10. Choose the Format of Your Essay before Writing It

The final shape that your essay takes depends a great deal on what kind of format you use. Popular college essay format types include the Modern Language Association of America ( MLA ), American Psychological Association ( APA ), and Chicago Manual of Style ( Chicago style).

These formats govern everything from capitalization rules to source citation. Often, professors dictate a specific format for your essay. If they do not, you should choose the format that best suits your field.

11. Create Clear Transitions between Your Ideas

Although unnecessary transition words are the enemy of clarity and concision, they can be invaluable tools when it comes to separating and connecting the different sections of your essay.

Not only do they help you express your ideas but they also bring a cohesive structure to your sentences and a pleasant flow to your writing. Just be sure that you are using the right transition words for the right purpose and to the proper effect.

12. Always Include an Organized Reference Page at the End of Your Essay

As a key component of MLA, APA, and Chicago Style formatting, the reference or Works Cited page is an essential part of any academic essay.

Regardless of the format used, the reference page must be well organized and easy to read so that your audience can see exactly where your outside information came from.

To produce a properly formatted reference page, you may have to familiarize yourself with specialized phrases and abbreviations, such as " et al ."

13. Use Inclusive Language

Incorporating inclusive language in your academic writing ensures that your work is respectful and accessible to all readers. Use gender-neutral pronouns like "they/them" and replace gender-specific terms with inclusive alternatives, such as "firefighter" instead of "fireman."

You can also respect cultural diversity by avoiding stereotypes and generalizations, specifying details like "Japanese, Thai, and Indian cuisine" rather than "Asian cuisine." Engaging with diverse audiences for feedback and staying updated on inclusive language practices will help you continuously improve your writing.

How to Write a Good Hook for an Essay

The key to a good hook is to introduce an unexplored or absorbing line of inquiry in your introduction that addresses the main point of your thesis.

By carefully choosing your language and slowly revealing details, you can build reader anticipation for what follows.

Much like an actual worm-baited fishing hook, a successful hook will lure and capture readers, allowing the writer to "reel them in."

How to Get Better at Writing Essays

You can get better at writing essays the same way that you improve at anything else: practice, practice, practice! However, there are a few ways that you can improve your writing quickly so you can turn in a quality academic essay on time.

In addition to following the 13 essay tips and guidelines above, you can familiarize yourself with a few common practices and structures for essay development.

Great writing techniques for essays include brainstorming and tree diagrams, especially when coming up with a topic for your thesis statement. Becoming familiar with different structures for organizing your essay (order of importance, chronological, etc.) is also extremely helpful.

How to Write a Good Introduction for an Essay

To learn how to write a good essay, you must also learn how to write a good introduction.

Most effective essay introductions begin with relatively broad and general subject matter and then gradually narrow in focus and scope until they arrive at something extremely specific: the thesis. This is why writers tend to place their thesis statements at the very end of their introductory paragraph(s).

Because they are generally broad and often relate only tangentially to an essay's main point, there is virtually no limit on what the beginning of a good introduction can look like. However, writers still tend to rely on somewhat cliché opening sentences, such as quotations and rhetorical questions.

How to Write a Good Conclusion for an Essay

Briefly put, a good conclusion does two things. It wraps up any loose ends and drives home the main point of your essay.

To learn how to write a good conclusion, you will want to ensure that no unanswered questions remain in the reader's mind. A good conclusion will restate the thesis and reinforce the essay's main supporting points.

Take Your Essay from Good to Great

About the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing turn into a great one after the editing process. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained nearly 20 degrees collectively. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

Have You Read?

"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

How Academic Writing Differs from Other Forms of Writing

How to Master the 4 Types of Academic Writing

The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing

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Reading in College

Improve your reading comprehension.

Reading assignments are a common part of university courses, and it is important to get the most out of these readings. Here are a collection of tips to help you do so.

General Reading Comprehension Tips

Put yourself in a position to succeed. Find a space where you will be able to focus—this can be in the library, Davies Student Center, a coffee shop in town, your dorm, or any number of places. Avoid reading for class while lying in bed, as it can lead to unplanned naps. Sitting upright is best. Some students prefer quiet, others find that a white noise app or instrumental music can help them focus.

Skim the reading beforehand. Students process information better when they can see the big picture. Before diving into the details of a reading, review the topics that will be covered and how the reading is organized. If there are review questions at the end of the reading, make note of those as they will guide you toward the key points.

Think about why your instructor assigned the reading. Is the reading a routine textbook assignment that is meant to preview material you will learn about in lecture? Is the reading preparing you for an in-class discussion? Are you writing a paper about the reading? Think about the reason you are reading the material and what you need to get out of the assignment. This will help you prioritize the information and stay focused.

Plan your reading . How long is the reading assignment?

If it is a thirty-page textbook chapter or twenty-page scholarly article , you should consider breaking the assignment into two or three reading sessions. Breaking up the assignment and taking good notes will allow you to follow the information more effectively. Be sure to reread the notes you took from the previous session before jumping back into the reading.
Are you reading an entire book ? Get out a calendar and plan for when you will read each chapter so that you can prepare and submit your assignment on time.

Don’t rely on highlighting. Highlighting can seem helpful in the moment, but if you highlight too many things in a reading it is not clear what is significant. If you plan to highlight a text, be sure to read a page before highlighting anything on the page and then only highlight key terms and phrases that support those ideas.

As you read, write down notes, questions, and reactions. Try to finish reading a page or section before taking notes, this will help you recognize what is worth writing down. Take some time and try to summarize the point that was made on a particular page or section. As you read, keep a record of your thoughts. Did you find a passage particularly helpful in explaining a concept? Note the paragraph location and include the page number. Will a specific point be useful when you write an essay about the reading? Write down the page number, a quote, and your analysis.

process and understand the reading
stay focused and engaged while reading
keep a record of what you read and the page numbers for specific information

Use a system to keep your notes organized. At a minimum, writing down the author and title of the reading as well as the date you are taking notes can be helpful. Using a digital program like OneNote or Evernote allows you to organize detailed notes for a variety of topics and classes.

Visit your professor’s office hours . Your instructor has hours each week where students can visit their office and ask questions. This is a good opportunity to talk to the professor about a reading and ask some questions. Be sure to write the professor’s office hours in your planner.

When sitting down to read a complex textbook chapter or scholarly article, the SQ3R method offers a helpful routine to stay focused and get the most out of the reading.

Follow these steps:

S - Survey Q - Question R - Read R - Recite R – Review

Survey The human brain thrives on context. Before beginning to read an assignment, survey the entirety of the text to see the general topics covered and if there are any review questions at the end. This will help you understand how the reading fits into the class and what information to key in on. Quickly flip through the pages and think about the following:

What type of reading is this (scholarly article, textbook, memoir, fiction)?
Who wrote it and when?
How does this reading relate to the class?
Why did the professor assign this material? What do they want you to get from it?
Make note of the title, look for an abstract, author bio, or any introductory information that offers context.
Note section headings, sub-headings, and bolded words, charts, and graphs
Set a goal for how much to read. If it is a long assignment, you may want to break it into two-to-three chunks.

Question To follow along with a reading, one must actively engage with the material. One way of doing so is to create questions you want to answer as you read.

Are there questions at the end of a chapter? Try to answer those as you read.
You can also use questions your professor provided.
Use ideas you learned from the “Survey” step to create your own questions.

Read Having scanned the text and come up with questions you want to answer, you can now begin reading the material.

Try to answer the questions you posed.
Annotate the text and make note of main ideas, connections to other concepts, etc.

Recite After reading the material you set out to complete, recite aloud the answers to the questions you posed and other important ideas.

Try to explain the ideas in your own words.
Without looking at the text, try to answer the questions you wrote down. Check your work.

Review Repetition is critical to learning. The more we engage with material, the better we understand it. After the “recite” step, it is important to look at your notes and think about the big ideas and how this reading relates to the course.

Review the text, your notes, and annotations.
Note connections between the reading you just did and other concepts from class.
Summarize the reading in a few sentences.

For more support with reading comprehension, schedule a free appointment with a Peer Academic Coach ! These hour-long meetings provide students with one-on-one support from another student trained to offer support and accountability.

Check out the following videos for additional study tips!

Works Consulted:

“ Taking Notes While Reading.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/taking-notes-while-reading/

“Reading Comprehension Tips.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-comprehension-tips/

“Reading Textbooks Effectively.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-textbooks-effectively/

"The SQ3R Method." Texas A & M University. Retrieved from https://asc.tamu.edu/Study-Learning-Handouts-(1)/Reading-Strategies-SQ3R-Method

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Improving Teens’ Reading and Their Well-Being

When Teens Choose to Read

A richer reading experience.

A diverse group of students sits together, smiling and engaged in lively discussion about the books they are reading

It might be more useful to view ELA classrooms as sites for conversations—with selves and others—that expand students’ social, moral, and intellectual development.

Students read more and read better.

Students expanded and improved relationships through book talk. , students became more empathic., this ability to imagine others’ thoughts and feelings and take up others’ perspectives is at the heart of social-emotional learning., students’ self-regulation improved., students started healing..

Gay Ivey is the William E. Moran Distinguished Professor in Literacy at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She is the co-author with Peter Johnston of Teens Choosing to Read: Fostering Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Growth Through Books (Teachers College Press, 2023).

Peter Johnston is Professor Emeritus in Literacy at the University at Albany. He is the co-author with Gay Ivey of Teens Choosing to Read: Fostering Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Growth Through Books (Teachers College Press, 2023).

ASCD is dedicated to professional growth and well-being.

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Passage: Help Students Improve Reading Comprehension Skills

Updated August 08, 2024 05:49

The Passage feature presents students with a passage or media, based on which they can answer a series of questions. This helps break down a complex question into multiple parts. By dissecting the material like this, you can give your students the space to enhance their reading comprehension abilities, encouraging critical thinking and turbocharging reading skills — with a dose of gamified fun! This article illustrates how you can use and create a Passage, how students will experience it, and how you can view its insights and report. This feature is available on the Quizizz School & District Plans .

Creating a Passage

Select 'Create’ from the left navigation pane

Click on ' Search Quizizz Library ' to pick curated Passages from the Quizizz Library
Click ' Generate with AI ' to generate a Passage and its questions for you in seconds
Click on ' Bring your own ' to import your own passages, upload a document, embed a website, or simply create a passage from scratch

You can add as many questions as you want to the Passage using 10+ question types like Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank, Hotspot, Dropdown, Categorize, Drag-and-Drop, Match, Reorder, Draw, Poll, Audio Response and Word Cloud, and Open-ended questions.

You can also:

add images, audio, video, and equations to your question
add an answer explanation if required
set the points to be allotted to the question
set the time allotted to the question
tag standards to the question

When you're satisfied with your Passage and its questions, click on 'Publish' from the top-right corner of your screen to host it as a live game or assign it as homework.

Keep reading to learn more about how to effectively create and use the Passage feature.

Pick curated Passages from the Quizizz Library

Click on 'Passage'
Click on 'Search Quizizz Library'
Search for a topic using the search bar and filter by grades, number of questions, question types, etc.

Some passages include word lists and can be viewed by clicking on the 'Word List' tab

Once you have chosen a Passage you want to use, click on the 'Use this Passage' button

Now, feel free to adjust this passage and its questions to fit your needs. You can add, edit, or remove questions, as well as modify the content of the passage. When you're satisfied with the changes, click on 'Publish' in the top-right corner to host the Passage as a live game or assign it as homework.

Use Quizizz AI to generate a Passage and its questions

Click on 'Generate with AI'
Enter the desired topic or content to get started
Optionally, you can include any specific words that you want to be added to the Passage. Simply list the words in the 'Ensure usage of specific words' field and separate them with commas

Optionally, select up to three subtopics so Quizizz AI can generate the content based on your specific requirements
Click on 'Continue'

Once Quizizz AI generates the passage and its question set, you can customize them further to fit your needs. You can add, edit, or remove questions and modify the passage's content. When you're satisfied with the changes, click on 'Publish' in the top-right corner to host the passage as a live game or assign it as homework.

Bring your own content from a document, website, etc., or create from scratch

Click on 'Bring your own'

To create a Passage from a document or image,

Click on 'Upload PDF, Doc, Image'
Here, you can upload a document or image from your Google Drive or directly from your device Note: Supported file formats are PDF, PNG, and JPEG, and the file size should be up to 5 MB and less than 10 pages

To create a Passage from a the content of a website,

Click on 'Embed website'
Enter the URL of the website from which you'd like to extract content for your Passage Note: Ensure that the URL is not hidden behind a login

Once the website content has been imported, you can manually add questions using 15+ question types or click on 'Generate with AI' for Quizizz AI to create questions based on your content.

To create a Passage from scratch,

Generate a with Quizizz AI: Click on 'Generate with AI', enter the content description, grade, paragraph count, subject, and language, then click 'Continue'. Adjust the number of questions and choose up to 3 subtopics. Finally, click 'Generate'.
Add text & media manually: Click on 'Add text & media manually' to type in your passage. Optionally, you can also upload audio clips, images, and videos with the passage. Then, manually add questions using 15+ question types or let Quizizz AI generate questions based on the content on the left-hand side of your screen.
Use content from a PDF file: Click on 'Upload PDf', select the PDF file from your device, add any desired text and annotations to the file, and click on 'Save'. You can add questions manually with 15+ types or use Quizizz AI to auto-generate them based on the content of your PDF file.

Once you've created your Passage and its question set, you can add, edit, remove questions, or make any other modifications.

When you're satisfied with the changes, click on 'Publish' in the top-right corner to host the passage as a live game or assign it as homework.

Student experience

When students attempt a Passage, they will be able to view the material on the left and a list of all the questions they need to answer on the right.

Viewing Reports

Within a Report, you can see responses for each question, within the Passage, separately. Click on the 'Questions' tab or the 'Overview' tab to see how students have responded to each question.

Every question within a Passage can be tagged to a separate standard. So, you can also click on the 'Standards' tab to gain insights on accuracy per standard.

You can even let Quizizz AI analyze the report for you and recommend practice assignments for your students. Read more about this here: Analyze Reports with Quizizz AI

Try it out now!

Note:

A Power-up, when applied, will affect only one question within the Passage activity
Quizizz AI is still learning and evolving. In some cases, it may generate inaccurate results. Please ensure you review the content generated before publishing it

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Learning Accelerators
Published Aug 14, 2024

Explore new AI features in Learning Accelerators

Content type
AI in education
Education decision makers
Microsoft 365
Microsoft Teams

As educators, you know how important it is to help your students develop the skills they need for academic success. But sometimes, it can be challenging to find the right tools and resources to support them along the way. That’s why we’re excited to highlight the new AI features in Learning Accelerators, designed to help you save time, create impactful content, and deepen your students’ learning experiences.

With Learning Accelerators, students can practice and build their skills in engaging and interactive ways, while you can gather data and insights to help them improve. These powerful tools included in Microsoft 365 Education can help you personalize learning for your students—and new AI-powered capabilities can help you prepare, review, and analyze their assignments more efficiently. Read on to explore the latest AI features in Learning Accelerators.

Support reading comprehension with Reading Progress

Discover student-centered solutions

Reading Progress tracks your students’ reading skills, gives you actionable insights quickly, and focuses students on specific areas for improvement. It provides actionable insights at the student-level and the class-level, allowing you to tailor your lessons more easily. The latest AI features in Reading Progress include:

Passage generation: Generate a passage directly in Reading Progress and leverage insights to personalize it based on the needs of your class and individual students. Select a topic, age, length, and language, and easily adjust the complexity of the passage once it has been generated.
Comprehension questions: Generate comprehension questions based on specific reading passages. Specify the number of questions you want to generate and customize the passage complexity. Reading Progress uses AI to draft an initial question set that you can review and tailor to your students’ needs.

Get started with Reading Progress in Microsoft Teams for Education. To learn more, check out the following resources:

A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators
Reading Progress Quick Guide PDF
Reading Progress product guide – Microsoft Learn Educator Center
Support reading fluency practice with Reading Progress – Training

Personalize reading practice with Reading Coach

Reading Coach Preview provides personalized, engaging AI-powered reading fluency practice for all learners. This powerful tool helps students develop literacy skills by earning achievements and unlocking new story elements as they read, driving continuous engagement. The AI features in Reading Coach include:

AI-generated stories: Students can create their own stories by choosing a character, setting, and reading level, and follow their own path through the story by choosing what happens in each chapter.
Passage library and adding your own content: Students can choose from a curated, reading level-appropriate library of passages from ReadWorks. They can also add their own content to practice reading.
Personalized and engaged practice: For every 20 minutes of reading any content, students can unlock a new character for their next story. Each reading session is also followed by targeted practice and coaching on challenging words.

Reading Coach Preview is currently available for free to use at school with a Microsoft Entra ID (school account) or at home using a personal Microsoft account. Get started with Reading Coach online or download the Windows app and use these resources to learn more:

Reading Coach with AI stories Quick Guide PDF
Build reading fluency with Reading Coach – Training

Develop confident communicators with Speaker Progress

Speaker Progress is now generally available! This innovative real-time coaching tool makes it easy to create presentation assignments that can help your students build their speaking skills. Students can boost their confidence by practicing in private—helping to reduce anxiety by removing the pressures of a full audience. The AI-powered features in Speaker Progress support you and your students by making learning more personalized and effective.

Real-time presentation evaluation: AI helps evaluate the presenter with feedback on their presentation skills, including pace, pitch, filler words, body language, and more. Tips are provided in real time, helping learners make adjustments and overcome challenges in the moment.
Personalized rehearsal report: An AI-generated rehearsal report provides detailed analysis of each presentation. This report allows students to review their performance and improve their verbal delivery with each attempt.

enhance learning with built-in ai tools

These features also offer additional opportunities for independent practice, empowering your students to continually improve their presentation skills and boost their confidence. Get started with Speaker Progress in Microsoft Teams for Education. Explore these resources to learn more:

Getting started with Speaker Progress for educators – Microsoft Support
Getting started with Speaker Progress for students – Microsoft Support
Develop confident presenters with Speaker Progress – Training

New AI features in Microsoft Teams for Education

In addition to the exciting AI-powered enhancements in Learning Accelerators, we’re pleased to share new capabilities in Microsoft Teams for Education. Designed to improve your workflow and maximize your instructional time, these updates use AI to help you draft content like rubrics and assignment instructions.

Create rubrics in Assignments: With generative AI integrated into Assignments, enter what you want the rubric to assess, and Assignments will suggest criteria and draft the rubric for you.
Create instructions in Assignments: Get multiple suggestions for how to enrich the content, such as adding more details, adding learning objectives, emphasizing key concepts, and even making your assignments more interesting. After the content is created, you can make further edits and updates as you go.

Download Microsoft Teams for Education to get started and check out the Teams for Education hub in the Microsoft Learn Educator Center for trainings, demos, and more.

Unlock the potential of the latest AI features for Learning Accelerators in your classroom today. In addition to leveraging the AI features above, we recommend building a strong foundation for understanding AI in education with the free AI for educators training courses and resources from the Microsoft Learn Educator Center .

Tips and guides
Jun 29, 2023

Building reading foundational skills: A guide to Reading Progress and Reading Coach in Teams for educators

Customer stories
Sep 19, 2023

How one school uses Reading Progress to improve student outcomes

Boost summer literacy skills with Reading Coach

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IMAGES

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COMMENTS

How to Improve Reading Comprehension: 8 Expert Tips
Interested in improving reading comprehension, but not sure how? Our complete guide explains both how to improve over time and offers tips to help you today.
The Right Way to Build Effective Reading Skills
Strong reading skills have an enormous impact on academic performance. Reading and literacy skills are the fundamental learning blocks for students. Without them, improving other school subjects can be difficult, and students can experience lifelong difficulties.
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As you prepare to write essays you will be faced with more reading than usual. How can you perfect your reading skills to improve speed and efficiency?
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Reading more can help to improve your writing by improving your vocabulary, grammar, and writing structure skills. The act of reading can also help you to incorporate new writing styles into your work and give you fresh perspectives that can be used in your writing. Reading can improve your critical thinking skills and cognitive function, which ...
How to Improve Your Reading Comprehension
Written by a former high school social studies teacher, this blog post provides 10 strategies educators can use to help students improve their reading comprehension. The list includes generating questions, reading aloud, annotating, summarizing, and more.
Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension. These seven strategies have research-based evidence for improving text comprehension.
Improving Student Writing through Reading Strategies
Some training and practice with reading strategies is a valuable addition to the skills of any tutor, especially in the writing center. Writing tutors focus primarily on the process of developing an essay, but they can also demonstrate and encourage reading strategies on multiple levels:
How to Improve Your English Reading Skills
Improve your English reading skills with these 22 tips for learning the language through books, comics, articles and more. From techniques for remembering vocabulary to dictionary recommendations, you'll find out how to make the most out of reading sessions. Includes reading recommendations based on your level!
11 Proven Tips to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills for Students
11 Ways to improve reading comprehension skills Whether you're teaching high school or elementary school, it's never too late to use reading comprehension strategies to improve understanding, boost retention and make connections.
Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading
As educators try to determine how to improve student learning and include more writing within the same time limits, it is important to revisit Steve Graham and Michael Hebert's (2010) Writing to Read, which gives strong evidence that writing, an essential skill itself, also improves reading comprehension. For decades researchers have ...
Effective Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension, or the ability to extract information accurately from reading narrative or content area textbooks, is critical for school success. Many students identified with learning disabilities struggle with comprehending or acquiring knowledge from text despite adequate word-recognition skills.
6 Techniques for Building Reading Skills—in Any Subject
Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, students are being shortchanged in their education. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information on a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate reading skills lessons ...
Reading and Writing for Understanding
Reading to Learn Jacobs explains that students learn and practice beginning reading skills through about the third grade, building their knowledge about language and letter-sound relationships and developing fluency in their reading.
'Writing Directly Benefits Students' Reading Skills'
Five experienced educators discuss how writing instruction can support the development of reading skills for students throughout K-12.
14 Powerful Reading Comprehension Strategies To Teach Students
Scarborough's Reading Rope is a way to visualize the skills that go into reading. The top five skills ( background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) become more strategic over time as students learn how to apply strategies to different kinds of text.
How to Make Your Essay Better: 7 Tips for Stronger Essays
If you've ever wondered how to make your essay better, start by fully understanding the prompt. Learn more about how to write better essays with our seven essay tips.
Research Guides: Interrogating Texts: Reading Strategies
Critical reading--active engagement and interaction with texts--is essential to your academic success at Harvard, and to your intellectual growth. Research has shown that students who read deliberately retain more information and retain it longer. Your college reading assignments will probably be more substantial and more sophisticated than ...
Why Reading is Essential for Improving Essay Writing Skills
The more students reading is spread out of topics and genres the deeper understanding they develop on the topics they are then to write essays about. The absorption of knowledge that happens through the process of reading is integral to students improving their essay writing skills. For those in education looking to improve their students ...
Students Improve in Reading Comprehension by Learning How to Teach
On the other hand, we wanted to investigate whether participants would benefit from the intervention in terms of improving their own reading skills. Therefore, the intervention we implemented was designed to determine how to apply and how to teach reading strategies.
13 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Academic Essay Writing Skills
The following essay-writing tips can help writers organize, format, and support their essays in ways that fit their intended purpose and optimize their overall persuasiveness. Here are 13 essay tips for developing and writing your next academic paper.
Reading in College
Academic Skills Center; Resources, Tips, and Tools for Students; Reading in College; Subtitle. Improve Your Reading Comprehension. Widgets. Reading assignments are a common part of university courses, and it is important to get the most out of these readings. ... Will a specific point be useful when you write an essay about the reading? Write ...
Improving Teens' Reading and Their Well-Being
Letting students choose their own books boosts reading engagement and promotes social-emotional and intellectual growth.
7 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills
Here are some strategies for developing your own written communication: 1. Review grammar and spelling basics. Grammar and spelling form the foundation of good writing. Writing with proper grammar and spelling communicates your professionality and attention to detail to your reader. It also makes your writing easier to understand.
Passage: Help Students Improve Reading Comprehension Skills
By dissecting the material like this, you can give your students the space to enhance their reading comprehension abilities, encouraging critical thinking and turbocharging reading skills — with a dose of gamified fun! This article illustrates how you can use and create a Passage, how students will experience it, and how you can view its ...
Explore new AI features in Learning Accelerators
Reading Coach Preview provides personalized, engaging AI-powered reading fluency practice for all learners. This powerful tool helps students develop literacy skills by earning achievements and unlocking new story elements as they read, driving continuous engagement. The AI features in Reading Coach include: